Spelling and Pronunciation

[zanotam]

As I've been reading the boards I've noticed something funny, words from the series get misspelled, a lot. The thing is however, even common words get misspelled, long ones, short ones, it doesn't seem to matter much. That got me thinking though, a lot of the spellings seem quasi-phonetic, but some of them seem a bit mangled. This brings me to my question, when reading, do you skip letters, rearrange them, just kinda take a best guess at what the word is? No, I'm not trying to call you dyslexic, I personally have trouble with the odd patterns of some words and names, even common ones.

[Shard]

It's lazyness and I'm speaking of myself here so like when I try to spell Caemlyn or Cairheirn I'm trying to go by memory and not bothering to look it up. However if I need to specify a character I try to get THAT right at least. *heh*

[Roxinos]

Nah, I have a fairly good memory for how things are spelled. When I'm not certain, I look it up at encyclopaedia-wot.org.

 

By the way, Shard...it's Cairhien. :-p

 

The only thing I don't try to spell is the Last Battle's Old Tongue name. I always forget where to put the apostrophe or if there is an apostrophe in that one word.

 

And when I'm reading the books, I'm fairly good at pronouncing things the way it's dictated to me. I certainly don't move letters around or skip them unless they're meant to be silent. I certainly don't replace them or rearrange them.

[zanotam]

I'm sure there is a pronunciation guide SOMEWHERE, but the first time I read the series I was about 10 or so, and so I just kinda took a best guess at a lot of the names and while I've worked out better more logical pronunciations since, they just seem....so.....unnatural. Since in TGH it turned out that a lot of the heroes names easily morphed into real names, I don't feel so bad, and the only ones I seem to mangle are Amyrillin (sp?), and Nynaeve I think.

[Roxinos]

Yeah...there is a pronunciation guide in the back of every single one of the books. It's called the Glossary.

 

Amyrlin.

[zanotam]

That's what I thought, but I've never been able to figure out how pronunciation guides work, oh well. Now of course, if they were to make a movie I'd no doubt use whatever pronunciation was used in there, or I guess if I talked to more than just a couple people about the series even.

[Roxinos]

You don't know how the pronunciation guides work? Are you serious? They don't even use the IPA.

 

First entry in The Eye of the World:

 

Adan, Heran (ay-DAN, HEH-ran)

 

How the hell do you think that's pronounced based on the pronunciation guide?

 

"Ay" is obviously like gay or fay and "dan" is obviously like the nickname for Daniel. The capital just means what is stressed.

 

Aes Sedai (EYEZ seh-DEYE)

 

Seriously? First word just like regular "eyes" but stressed. And "seh" like "meh" and "deye" is like "eye" with a D in front of it, and is stressed.

 

Amyrlin Seat (AHM-er-lin)

 

Each of the hyphens indicates a separate syllable. AHM is where the stress is and you say it like "NOM NOM NOM." Er...if you really need help with that one then I'm going to cry. Same with lin, really.

[Thorum]

The best is Siuan (SWAN)

 

Like the bird

[Sylvia]

Okay, I KNOW that I mispronounce many of the names/places/things from the series. I normally go by what the first pronunciation I used was. Nynaeve is the main one, that the first time I read it, I called her Nye-Veen....Completely wrong, and doesn't follow the spelling, but it makes it easy for me to skim.

[Frances]

The best is Siuan (SWAN)

 

Like the bird

 

WHAT? And I thought I finaly had all the names right on this readtrough.

 

Anyway, I pronounce it See-ooh-ahn. I pronuonuced Aiel (like ale) wrong for years, and the correct way to pronounce Taim still feels strange to me.

[zanotam]

Okay fine, so I just skip over the pronunciation part. I think I'll actually look at it for once as "Swan" is a lot easier than "See-you-on", and I have most of them right it's just a few I have wrong. Nynaeve's is the worst though name wise.

[Rolan]

I think I pronounce most things correctly, although I stick with some of the pronunciations I gave names myself, despite finding out they were wrong.

 

I too call the Aiel "Ay-elle" instead of what I believe to be correct in "EYE-eel" kind of pronunciation.

 

God knows how to pronounce Talmanes :-[

[zanotam]

I always called the Aile, "Ale" as in the beverage. I got at least some of my pronunciations from a friend though who got me to read the series the first time, and I know that friend is really bad at pronunciation for things he reads.

[Elgee]

It's easy to get the pronunciation wrong, especially if you are not a native English speaker. Probably even British people would pronounce it differently to Americans, or Australians.

 

What I don't get, is that people can't SPELL it correctly. It's Aes Sedai, for crying in a bucket, not Aes Sedia! It's Elaida, not Elidia, or whatever other versions people come up with.

 

Sometimes I completely miss the point of a post / argument on here, because I'm fixated on my favourite fantasy, where I repeatedly beat someone over the head with a heavy base frying pan. Especially those who use ALOT  >:( ... *breathes through nose*.

 

What gets me, is that there are so MANY people making the same mistakes over and over. Either we have an unusually high percentage of dyslexic people on here (though strangely, those whom I know are dyslexic rarely make mistakes), or people aren't actually taught how to spell in school anymore.

 

ps: I pronounce Siuan as Sue Anne, in my head  ;D

I know it's wrong, but while I was trying to figure out the correct pronunciation from the guide, that popped into my head. Anyone who watched Dallas many years ago, should understand why that sent me into gales of laughter. I'm afraid it stuck in my head, like a bad song, and I just can't get it out  :P

[Roxinos]

There is a difference between a difference in dialects or accents that shifts the pronunciation and just pronouncing it correctly.

 

A Brit or an Aussie with an accent saying "EYE-eel" with their accent would still be saying it correctly. Just as long as they put the stress on "EYE" and they say "eel."

[zanotam]

The spelling thing I admit was what bugged me. I know I'm not perfect, I'm rereading the series for the first time in a year or so, but I do try very hard and if I see an abbreviation or a correct spelling I try to fix it. I mean there are so many weird words in the series that I can understand the occasional bad spelling, but it's a bit annoying to read someone misspell even the most common terms which are repeated over and over and over again consistently.

[Elgee]

 

Adan, Heran (ay-DAN, HEH-ran)

 

How the hell do you think that's pronounced based on the pronunciation guide?

 

"Ay" is obviously like gay or fay and "dan" is obviously like the nickname for Daniel. The capital just means what is stressed.

 

 

Without you specifying that "dan" is like Daniel, I would automatically read that as "dun", because that is how the A is pronounced in Afrikaans. It's an instinctive reaction, because that is the language I think in.

 

Take something as simple as "tomato": I would pronounce the A as AAAA (British Enlish), whereas the Americans would pronounce it "(m)ay". In fact, I'd pronounce the T in the "to" part as a T, not some weird sounding D or R (which is what American T's sound like, to me)  :P

[Shard]

Did it ever occur to you that some may not like Eliadia enough to spell her name right? lol

[Elgee]

.... nope?  ;D

[Achoo]

Spelling mistakes like those examples above are usually typos. It is easy to hit the wrong key or the keys in the wrong order, and one should not be upset with someone for that sort of mistake.

 

As for pronunciation, I have never seen a reason to look up pronunciation in a book, since no matter how it should be said, I will always revert to using the way I like best anyhow.

[Goramier]

My way, and I am sticking to it. Here is the short list:

 

Aes Sadai = Ace Sed Die

Siuan = Sue Ann

Aiel = Ale

Tear = Tare

Talmanes = Tal Mains (noticed some one mentioned but I never thought of it being different?)

Seanchan = Sea an shan

Seandar = Sea an dare

Nynaeve = Nen yave

Ogier = Ogeer

Taim = Tame

Padan Fain = Pay din Fane

Mat Cauthon = Mat Cathoon (old habit that I since fixed but still some times use Cathoon)

Perrin Aybara = retard obsessive boy (not really but I have grown to dislike the character alot - he is shadow spawn)

Gaidal Cain = GayDal Kane

Jain Farstrider = Jame Far strider

Elyas Machera = Elis Matchera

Graendal = Grand All

Cairhien = Car Heen or Care Heenin (another of my more odd ones and even when I read I often interchange the use of either of those)

 

[Roxinos]

Without you specifying that "dan" is like Daniel, I would automatically read that as "dun", because that is how the A is pronounced in Afrikaans. It's an instinctive reaction, because that is the language I think in.

 

Take something as simple as "tomato": I would pronounce the A as AAAA (British Enlish), whereas the Americans would pronounce it "(m)ay". In fact, I'd pronounce the T in the "to" part as a T, not some weird sounding D or R (which is what American T's sound like, to me)  :P

 

If I had been talking to you, and I had known that you are of that dialect, then I would have adjusted what I said accordingly. I was talking to someone specific, and what I said is not relevant to everyone. I was using examples that we, presumably, share a common background in.

[water_seeker]

People are going to misspell things.  "They're" is going to be "their" or "there".  "Should have" is going to be "should of" *shudders*.  Those are "everyday words" that people mess up, WoT specific words are less important because of their lack of "everyday usage."

 

Either way, the thing is, people will ALWAYS misspell stuff.  That means if YOU get hung up on something because it's not spelled properly, that's on YOU, and YOU'RE the one who has to either get over it, or move on.

 

I bring this up because I used to get hung up on that stuff.  I couldn't get through a misspelled post even if I knew what the person meant because I couldn't get past the spelling.  Forums were really boring for me back then.  Now that I've forced myself to see what the person is saying instead of how they say it, I feel I get more out of these forums.

 

for crying in a bucket

 

I've never heard that one before...

[Elgee]

Without you specifying that "dan" is like Daniel, I would automatically read that as "dun", because that is how the A is pronounced in Afrikaans. It's an instinctive reaction, because that is the language I think in.

 

Take something as simple as "tomato": I would pronounce the A as AAAA (British Enlish), whereas the Americans would pronounce it "(m)ay". In fact, I'd pronounce the T in the "to" part as a T, not some weird sounding D or R (which is what American T's sound like, to me)  :P

 

If I had been talking to you, and I had known that you are of that dialect, then I would have adjusted what I said accordingly. I was talking to someone specific, and what I said is not relevant to everyone. I was using examples that we, presumably, share a common background in.

 

Yeah I know you weren't talking to me specifically  :D

I was just trying to illustrate how the pronunciation guide does not actually work for everyone, because we would automatically "translate" to our own accent or language.

 

People are going to misspell things.  "They're" is going to be "their" or "there".  "Should have" is going to be "should of" *shudders*.  Those are "everyday words" that people mess up, WoT specific words are less important because of their lack of "everyday usage."

 

Either way, the thing is, people will ALWAYS misspell stuff.  That means if YOU get hung up on something because it's not spelled properly, that's on YOU, and YOU'RE the one who has to either get over it, or move on.

 

I bring this up because I used to get hung up on that stuff.  I couldn't get through a misspelled post even if I knew what the person meant because I couldn't get past the spelling.  Forums were really boring for me back then.  Now that I've forced myself to see what the person is saying instead of how they say it, I feel I get more out of these forums.

 

for crying in a bucket

 

I've never heard that one before...

 

*Sees red at the whole "should of" thing.*

 

water_seeker, I hear and understand what you are saying, and I'm sure my life would be a lot less stressful if I followed your advice, but it's not like I'm expecting people to do quantum physics here! If people cannot even be bothered to get basic spelling right, or their school system is so up the creek that they never learned that most basic of things, how much credence should I give to their theories? And if you can't even recall the names of people/places in the Books, how much else are you sucking out of your thumb or misunderstanding?

 

Basically: you want me to take you seriously, then make an effort.

 

I know English must be one of the most difficult languages to learn, given its convoluted and contradictory spelling rules, but surely if you see that most other people do not spell some words they way you do, you would check up on it?

 

I'm not talking about the odd spelling mistake one makes when tired. I'm talking about consistent incorrect spelling or usage of words, which are not only annoying, but also confusing. If you're prone to that, get Firefox - it has spell check  :P

[The Doctor]

What if someone only posts when tired?  What if that person is also odd?  Then whatever spelling mistakes he or she made would always be an odd spelling mistake made when tired.

 

Too lazy to look it up, but how is Taim pronounced?  I always pronounced it like the housbroken/docile tame.

 

I've always pronounced Aile like aisle or isle, which is actually correct when you factor in that's how a new yorker would say EYE-eel. 

 

I'd write more, but I'm tired, and I should've not even started in the first place.  Say hi to Elididia and Sue Anne Satchmo for me.