Are we mispronouncing Belichick?

[Tunescribe]

Have we been pronouncing Bill Belichick's name wrong?

BB is pronounced bee bee. Or if that's too difficult (like for Jete fans), just say Bill.

 

[BTTA]

How can a first grade teacher just change the spelling of his name?

Teachers used to do it routinely to "help" immigrant children integrate into their classrooms. If the name was easy to pronounce, other kids would be able to use it, and the overall social life of the child would be improved.

 

[Joker]

I went to the otorhinolarynologist the other day and he told me to take two spoonfuls of Worcestershire sauce with a plate of quinoa....

 

[Tunescribe]

I went to the otorhinolarynologist the other day and he told me to take two spoonfuls of Worcestershire sauce with a plate of quinoa....

It's best served with roast kohlrabi and a dollop of chimichurri.

 

[SHOWTIME15]

Teachers used to do it routinely to "help" immigrant children integrate into their classrooms. If the name was easy to pronounce, other kids would be able to use it, and the overall social life of the child would be improved.

Oh gotcha. If they did that today, some people would say it’s racist or something.

 

[primetime]

Then why aren't they both spelled "ch"? Why spell them differently from "ch" and differently from each other?

Because Croatian and English have different alphabets, and unlike English all Croatian letters are phonetic. Croatian is a latinized version of Cyrillic (if you can read Cyrillic, Serbian, which is the same language in the 'original' alphabet, is much easier to comprehend; I'm a a Russian and Bulgarian speaker to get by and can speak enough Bosnian-Serbian-Croatian and Croatian trips me up because of false similarities to English letters while Serbian is easy to get; I have to consciously read Croatian into Cyrillic in my head).

The two different letters are mostly an artifact, the ? was at one point pronounced "harder" than the ?, but nowadays they're pretty much the same. To make it even more confusing, a c in Croatian is always pronounced like "ts" (Cyrillic letter ?). There's no hard c, that's what the letter k is for, and a soft c is the letter s.

Though it sounds confusing, it's actually much less confusing than English in the grant scheme of things. Think about how c, k, and ck can all take on the same pronunciation, but c can also take on the same pronunciation as letter s (which in turn also does double duty with sh), or the sound ch with an h, but to further complicate matters our "ch" can also be a k as in Christmas if the word is of Greek origin, as in modern English the k sound has completely replaced the guttural "kh" sound of the Greek chi, or x, whereas most Slavic languages preserve it in the letter x.

English even has a sound that doesn't exist in Slavic languages (th; hence why Russians, even fluent English speakers, say things like tis or tem or boat instead of this or them or both). You internalize these things as a child as a native speaker, but it explains why English is so difficult to learn.

 

[Tony2046]

I went to the otorhinolarynologist the other day and he told me to take two spoonfuls of Worcestershire sauce with a plate of quinoa....

Funny. I live near Werstah.

 

[Tony2046]

Because Croatian and English have different alphabets, and unlike English all Croatian letters are phonetic. Croatian is a latinized version of Cyrillic (if you can read Cyrillic, Serbian, which is the same language in the 'original' alphabet, is much easier to comprehend).

The two different letters are mostly an artifact, the ? was at one point pronounced "harder" than the ?, but nowadays they're pretty much the same. To make it even more confusing, a c in Croatian is always pronounced like "ts" (Cyrillic letter ?). There's no hard c, that's what the letter k is for, and a soft c is the letter s.

Though it sounds confusing, it's actually much less confusing than English in the grant scheme of things. Think about how c, k, and ck can all take on the same pronunciation, but c can also take on the same pronunciation as letter s (which in turn also does double duty with sh), or the sound ch with an h. English even has a sound that doesn't exist in Slavic languages (th; hence why Russians, even fluent English speakers, say things like tis or tem or boat instead of this or them or both). You internalize these things as a child as a native speaker, but it explains why English is so difficult to learn.

Had a German friend who told me that he spent time as a kid with a speech therapist to get rid of his problem pronouncing T's as Thuh instead as Tuh. He laughed when he bagan taking English classes and had to relearn how to pronounce TH as Thuh.

 

[Froob]

Who cares. My last name is impossible to pronounce and spell. Everyone in the western world can spell Belichick now.

When we go to restaurants Mrs RW uses Seinfeld names.

Kramer
Klompus
Chote
Gack
Costanza

How did you leave out Vandelay?

 

[RobertWeathers]

How did you leave out Vandelay?

She might have used that a couple of times

 

[RobertWeathers]

Funny. I live near Werstah.

No kidding. This is the last region on earth that should criticize how to properly pronounce a last name.

 

[primetime]

Had a German friend who told me that he spent time as a kid with a speech therapist to get rid of his problem pronouncing T's as Thuh instead as Tuh. He laughed when he bagan taking English classes and had to relearn how to pronounce TH as Thuh.

And then in American English, particularly northeastern dialects, we eat our hard t's and replace them with glottal stops of various stress anyways. If you're from New England, say "getting better" or "button" out loud and listen carefully to what you actually said.

Imagine being someone just learning English and having to learn that "ge'in" is the word getting. I'm always ridiculously impressed at these foreign kids who learned English with YouTube videos and playing online games, and there are a lot of them nowadays.

 

[Tony2046]

No kidding. This is the last region on earth that should criticize how to properly pronounce a last name.

Learning English is tough (uff) although (oh) most Plough(ow) through (oo) it.

 

[PatsWickedPissah]

Because Croatian and English have different alphabets, and unlike English all Croatian letters are phonetic. Croatian is a latinized version of Cyrillic (if you can read Cyrillic, Serbian, which is the same language in the 'original' alphabet, is much easier to comprehend; I'm a a Russian and Bulgarian speaker to get by and can speak enough Bosnian-Serbian-Croatian and Croatian trips me up because of false similarities to English letters while Serbian is easy to get; I have to consciously read Croatian into Cyrillic in my head).

The two different letters are mostly an artifact, the ? was at one point pronounced "harder" than the ?, but nowadays they're pretty much the same. To make it even more confusing, a c in Croatian is always pronounced like "ts" (Cyrillic letter ?). There's no hard c, that's what the letter k is for, and a soft c is the letter s.

Though it sounds confusing, it's actually much less confusing than English in the grant scheme of things. Think about how c, k, and ck can all take on the same pronunciation, but c can also take on the same pronunciation as letter s (which in turn also does double duty with sh), or the sound ch with an h, but to further complicate matters our "ch" can also be a k as in Christmas if the word is of Greek origin, as in modern English the k sound has completely replaced the guttural "kh" sound of the Greek chi, or x, whereas most Slavic languages preserve it in the letter x.

English even has a sound that doesn't exist in Slavic languages (th; hence why Russians, even fluent English speakers, say things like tis or tem or boat instead of this or them or both). You internalize these things as a child as a native speaker, but it explains why English is so difficult to learn.

Outed as a commie! I knew it!

 

[Tony2046]

And then in American English, particularly northeastern dialects, we eat our hard t's and replace them with glottal stops of various stress anyways. If you're from New England, say "getting better" or "button" out loud and listen carefully to what you actually said.

Imagine being someone just learning English and having to learn that "ge'in" is the word getting. I'm always ridiculously impressed at these foreign kids who learned English with YouTube videos and playing online games, and there are a lot of them nowadays.

Was with a Chinese friend at a restaurant. He asked, "What's a Super Salad?" hahaha

Not laughing at him but at the fact that it had never dawned on me before. "Soup or Salad" should be served with a cape.

 

[RayClay]

Have we been pronouncing Bill Belichick's name wrong?

Boy, when you put belly chick into an image search, you get a wide variety of results. Some very nice, some not so much.

 

[RayClay]

Well, that's not how you'd pronounce Bili?i? in Croatian, anyways. Both c's with diacritics above them are pronounced as ch's. Assuming the second syllable is stressed, that i would be pronounced closer to the i in "police" than in "sit" and would not morph to a schwa. So it's more like Bill-EECH-ich. But the name was anglicized and is pronounced the way it's pronounced; it's not like we're saying Brady like Brádaigh is correctly pronounced either.

Good stuff.

By the way, Brady clan name is Mac Brádaig and the motto on the crest translates into "the right hand is clear" Right hand pointing to the sun. That's just bizarre.

Because Croatian and English have different alphabets, and unlike English all Croatian letters are phonetic. Croatian is a latinized version of Cyrillic (if you can read Cyrillic, Serbian, which is the same language in the 'original' alphabet, is much easier to comprehend; I'm a a Russian and Bulgarian speaker to get by and can speak enough Bosnian-Serbian-Croatian and Croatian trips me up because of false similarities to English letters while Serbian is easy to get; I have to consciously read Croatian into Cyrillic in my head).

The two different letters are mostly an artifact, the ? was at one point pronounced "harder" than the ?, but nowadays they're pretty much the same. To make it even more confusing, a c in Croatian is always pronounced like "ts" (Cyrillic letter ?). There's no hard c, that's what the letter k is for, and a soft c is the letter s.

Though it sounds confusing, it's actually much less confusing than English in the grant scheme of things. Think about how c, k, and ck can all take on the same pronunciation, but c can also take on the same pronunciation as letter s (which in turn also does double duty with sh), or the sound ch with an h, but to further complicate matters our "ch" can also be a k as in Christmas if the word is of Greek origin, as in modern English the k sound has completely replaced the guttural "kh" sound of the Greek chi, or x, whereas most Slavic languages preserve it in the letter x.

English even has a sound that doesn't exist in Slavic languages (th; hence why Russians, even fluent English speakers, say things like tis or tem or boat instead of this or them or both). You internalize these things as a child as a native speaker, but it explains why English is so difficult to learn.

How do slavs lisp?

 

[tasmlab]

We're on to Cincinnati.

Am I the only one who sees that Brett Favre's last name has the "r' after the "v"?

 

[primetime]

How do slavs lisp?

It happens, t to th, its not like tongue mechanics change. There's also the l to w morph. Interestingly, the l to w lisp is systematized in Bulgarian, such that the city Lovech is pronounced Wovech throughout much of the country.

 

[primetime]

Outed as a commie! I knew it!

I never hid it!

(Though the association of communism with the Soviet Union, a repressive totalitarian state that simply replaced tsar with Party, and where the upshot was just anemic capitalism, is unfortunate.)