this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2023
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[–] [email protected] 40 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Every “e” in “Mercedes” is pronounced differently.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 10 months ago (1 children)

An Austrian dude named the Mercedes line of cars after his daughter Mercédès Adrienne Ramona Manuela Jellinek. He got the name from Spanish, and in Spanish all the "e"s are pronounced the same

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Except for the ones with accent marks on them…

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Well, in Spanish none of the "e"s in "Mercedes" have an accent mark in them, and in Spanish the accent mark only flags the tonic syllable, it doesn't change the pronunciation.

So no.

That's how you spell that name in French, though. And yes, you do say all those the same there, too.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

I'd say they sound slightly different in French, the middle e is a bit lower than the other two.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Except that the name written in Spanish does not have any accent markings, and even if it did, it would not change the pronunciation of the letter. Accent markings over vowels in Spanish simply denote syllable stress.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Those are French accent marks... which only confuses me more🤔

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Then I guess I don't pronounce it correctly at all.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (4 children)

Dr. Johnson (the dude in the meme) actually wrote a great preface to his dictionary. It is about how to think about language and how to write a book describing language.

Great read.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago

That's fascinating and surprisingly appropriate for this meme.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

The bottom picture is also just in his favorite restaurant in London. I was kinda surprised when I came across it.

painting in ye old cheshire cheese

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

Truly a man worthy of one's most enthusiastic contrafibularities.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

People like you are the bright side of internet.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 10 months ago

A rough-coated, dough-faced ploughman strode, coughing and hiccoughing, thoughtfully through the streets of Loughborough.

Ough

[–] [email protected] 20 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Trying to learn "i before e"

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

True, but the full saying is, “I before E, except after C or when sounded as A as in neighbour and weigh. And weird is just weird.” There are still some exceptions to this rule though but most of the time, it’ll work.

There’s also a version that was taught to some people that goes like, “I before E, except after C, for words sounding like E” which worked most of the time too back when that saying was made (since we use more words of Greek origin now that break this rule).

[–] [email protected] 25 points 10 months ago

Not mine, but gets the point across:

And yes, English is an endlessly exhaustive exercise in eloquence and execution.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

Actually, that "full version" is still more wrong than it is right. For example: fancier, species, their, heist, foreign, vein, seize, science, Raleigh, Keith, Neil, either and neither, leisure, deity, atheism (ironic), reignite, albeit.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

How to reset an entire language

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Currently going through this with my six year old. It's really hard to help her learn to read without just doing it for her over and over because pronunciation is shit. She can't just sound it out when the same letter sounds three different ways.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

I learned English by watching shows first in Danish(my tongue) then in English, and was forced to use English in games, this was the way I learned it.

They tried in school but the way teacher's used to teach English just didn't made sense fore many of us.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

Actually it’s pronounced “specific”.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

LMCO

Laughing My Coccyx Off

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

That's because we're not sounding out the c on its own

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Pakific othan

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Do a lot of people not pronounce the L in calm?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

Whoever wrote it was probably from Boston.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

most don't release it. It's usually a slightly rounding/coloring of the vowel, but most accents don't say "callum" / "callam" / "callem"

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

Really grasping at straws with Q and V there.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

a whole bunch of non-english words

ok buddy

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

But... it's only one of the "C"s...