My worst example was the word GIF pronounced like the peanut butter instead of properly as in Graphical. It’s worse because Amanda Montell was writing a linguistics book about the history of language and words.
Recent example was “eschew” which is pronounced Eh-shoo but the narrator said “Eskew” and it confused me so much I had to Google it to make sure I hadn’t been saying it wrong my whole life. What exmaples have you found?
The creator of the GIF format actually pronounces it “jif” and argues that’s how it should be pronounced, so the narrator wasn’t wrong.
the creator of GIF says its pronounced Jif
Well, he can just be wrong then.
Don’t get me started on JPEGs (jay-phegs)!
I was listening to a book that took place in Wyoming, specifically Dubois, WY. I’m from near there, driven through a lot, know people that live there. I know how it’s pronounced. The narrator kept pronouncing it the French way which is incorrect and drove me so insane I had to stop listening. It would have taken all of 2 seconds to Google it.
I had a similar one with Concord, NH. I’m from there, and we pronounce it like “conquered” not like “Con-cord.” It irked me so much I had to turn it off.
I read a book that took place in Metro Detroit. The narrator did fine with the city name, but there were so many street or neighborhood names that she got wrong! I had to ditch the book.
Dequindre, Schoenherr, Lahser, etc
I’ve had several recently, unfortunately, and it drives me nuts.
A character’s name (a horse) named Deimos. Pronounced by the narrator Die-mos, not Dee-mos. This was constant and had me yelling at the narrator regularly.
There was something that was a character’s forte in another book. Pronounced fort, not four-the.
There was another, but I can’t remember it at the moment.
On the other hand, I’ve had some narrators pronounce words correctly that I’ve only ever read and I was doing it completely wrong. Bivouac is one that comes to mind.
Not a word, but a name: Juniper (from Wise Child by Monica Furlong). Narrator made it rhyme with viper. Ruined the whole experience.
Jen-eye-furr, Joo-nigh-per lives upon the high-ull…
That’s the correct pronunciation. You Yanks pronounce it fucking weirdly.
It is pronounced jif.
Stephen Fry in the Harry Potter audiobooks pronounces ‘obliviate’ as ‘ob-liv-ee-ah-tay’. Maybe that is the correct way, but it just sounds wrong to me.
He also pronounced Holyhead (the home of the Holyhead Harpies quidditch team) wrong - he pronounced it Holey-head, but the actual town is pronounced Holly-head
Was looking for this comment! Really threw me that he didn’t know how to pronounce it!!
Sadly it is pronounced JIF according the creator of the file format (though I have always preferred the hard g tbh). And I’m pretty sure both pronunciations of eschew are valid? Merriem Webster lists the “e-ˈskyü” pronunciation as a rarer variant, and according to a poll I found it’s around 25% of people who pronounce it that way.
Like most words do have regional variants language is fluid so I wouldn’t say there really is a wrong or a right in most of these cases.
And in the case of a lot of people making the same “mistake” for long enough, the secondary popular pronunciation will inevitably end up in the dictionary sooner or later anyway lol
Pyramids has a character named Ptraci. He pronounces the p.
I can almost understand trying to do that with the audiobook in order to recreate the visual joke that you can’t see. Especially if it’s an older recording originally intended for people with visual impairments.
That said, whatever the intent, I suspect the joke wouldn’t land the same way, and it would just get old listening to mispronounced characters.
An audiobook of Good Omens was ruined by the reader pronouncing Anathema (a nah the muh) as Anthemena (anthem eena).
Oh God. I didn’t know that word when I first read the book but at least I pronounced it Anna-theema in my head. Anthem-eena is unconscionable
I did the same
I only remember listening to The Way of Kings (I think. That or the following one), which is narrated by two voice artists, husband and wife, and hearing her pronounce an unfamiliar name - only to later understand she was referring to a character that was far more prominent in her husband’s parts, and that he pronounced differently.
It was very jarring, especially since I had never seen the actual spelling.
Funny thing is, I now remember her pronunciation, not his :p
Holy crap they do that CONSTANTLY in The Wheel of Time as well. Kate Reading has a habit of changing pronunciations mid chapter. I think in book 2 of The Stormlight Archives she changed the Thaylen accent to French from one paragraph to the next and in maybe book 3 of The Wheel of Time she changed the way she said Siuan like 3 times in the same conversation. I know they’re a popular team but it just seems so unprofessional.
I remember this narration… also the performance of characters done by the different actors really drew me out of the story. I still listened and loved the stories, and I think they improved as the series went on, but I wish they collaborated a little (or a little more?) while doing the first book… I’m team szeth all day everyday haha
They do the same thing in their narration of Wheel of Time. It drives me bananas
I’m about a quarter of the way through Way of Kings right now! I found the switch between narrators more jarring than any mispronunciations. I get that it’s a switch to a woman’s perspective but it’s really unnecessary.
Let me guess— Kate Reading and Michael Kramer? Because they did the Wheel of Time series and are notorious for the amount of pronunciation disagreements in that. Also she pronounced topiary as toe-PIE-uh-ree.
Yes! In NOS4A2 Kate Mulgrew mispronounces Haverhill (a town in Massachusetts) repeatedly. It was incredibly annoying.
I went to a book signing where another person asked him about the mispronunciation and he seemed have no clue the city name was being said wrong or he failed to listen to past the first 10 minutes.
In The Expanse audiobooks, the incredibly talented and irreplaceable Jefferson Mays occasionally pronounces “gimbals” with a J sound, but most of the time with a G sound.
I don’t like when people pronounce GIF with a soft g, but they aren’t incorrect in doing so.
There was a John Quincy Adams biography where the narrator mispronounced his middle name, even in the part of the book that described its pronunciation.