If You Only Knew How to Pronounce It

Today, I venture into pronunciation. Our language is always changing and ever-evolving, and so are pronunciations. I found a YouTube video from the channel “Today I Found Out” that mentions examples of words we now pronounce differently than their creators originally intended.

Here they are, alphabetically:

Dr. Seuss — Theodore Geisel got tired of correcting people on how to pronounce his middle name, “Zoyse.” I can relate, as my name can be pronounced “BAR-nuh-thun” or “Bar-NATHAN.” Different branches of the family tree pronounce it differently.

UFO — We know this as “unidentified flying object,” so coined by Edward J. Ruppelt in his 1956 book “The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects.” But according to video channel host Simon Whistler, Ruppelt intended the initialism to be pronounced “YOU-foe.”

Wikipedia — Howard Cunningham (not the guy played by Tom Bosley on “Happy Days”) used the Hawaiian word wiki, which is pronounced “WEE-KEE,” so the online encyclopedia should be pronounced “WEE-KEE-Pedia.”

Ye — Growing up, I knew of a pizza chain called Shakey’s. Inside were signs that used the term “Ye Olde Pizza Parlour” to connote nostalgia for a fictional past time. We pronounce it “YEE,” but according to Whistler, it should be pronounced “the” because the Y is left over from the Old English, Old Norse, Old Swedish and modern Icelandic alphabets’ letter Þ, called thorn. It was pronounced th-. Whistler said the printing press didn’t have this letter, so printers used a Y instead.

In the Bible, however, the ye in “Judge not, that ye be not judged” (Matthew 7:1) is an older form of the modern word “you” and is pronounced “YEE.”

I’m not saying we’re mispronouncing the words now, not should we all go back to pronouncing the words/names as originally intended. I just find it fascinating.

Until next time! Use the right words!

leebarnathan.com