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Monday 12 October 2015

SEE NO WEEVIL, HEAR NO WEEVIL, SPEAK NO WEEVIL



'Jesus wants a little wee' my young daughter once sang in Sunday school, her slight muddling of the words casing much hilarity.

Yet it seems even the most well-read adults still make basic mistakes when it comes to pronunciation. According to today's Times newspaper, Don Quixote (that's Don-Key-Hoh-Tee to those in the know) has topped a list of literary names that people struggle to say correctly. 

Quixote is joined by Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones and Hermione from Harry Potter, 'both of which may be tricky for some but are less likely to be still causing readers problems in 400 years' time.'

Astonishingly, a survey of 2,000 people aged 18-65 found that 39 percent had pronounced the names of literary characters incorrectly.  Some, it seems, even struggle over the name of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot. The poll follows the Harry Potter author JK Rowling's recent disclosure that Voldemort is actually pronounced 'Vol-De-Mor' - advice that does not seem to have been followed by the film's actors.

Even the names of the authors themselves can be a  problem for some people.  Eoin Colfer,   author of the Artemis Fowl books, for example, is pronounced Owen Colfer and JM Coetzee, (twice Booker Prize winner) is pronounced Cut-Zee-Uh.

Most of us can remember a 'lightbulb' moment  when we finally realised we had been mispronouncing a well-use word since childhood.  Mine was the word tragedy which I had pronounced as trage-ty until the age of twelve when I saw the word written in huge letters in the headline of a tabloid newspaper.

In case you are wondering,  my daughter should have sung Jesus' little ones are we. Meanwhile, if you have spent years of your life mispronouncing a word, I would love to hear from you.


















 

6 comments:

Heather Burnside said...

An original and very entertaining post Marilyn. My son still mispronounces words he has read in books but unfortunately I can't think of any specific examples. :)

clo said...

I was on tender-hooks for years!

Guernsey Girl said...

I'm glad you related to the post, Heather. Our children's mistakes are often the funniest of all....:)

Guernsey Girl said...

Ha ha, Chloe. Talking of tents, I have fond memories of your Duke of Edinburgh award trip to this day...

another guernsey girl said...

Thanks for your interesting post Marilyn. When i was about four i went to church with my grandmother and i heard a sermon and the vicar mentioned the holy ghost and for years after that i thought he said holy goat!

Guernsey Girl said...

Holy Goat? Now that has really made me laugh - especially as I'm still trying to picture it... Thanks so much for adding your thoughts!