List Of Names In English With Counterintuitive Pronunciations
This is a set of lists of English personal and place names whose pronunciations are counterintuitive to their spelling, because the pronunciation does not correspond to the spelling, or because a better-known namesake has a markedly different pronunciation. They are known as heterophonic names (unlike homonyms, which have different meanings).
Excluded are the numerous spellings which fail to make the pronunciation obvious without actually being at odds with it: for example, the pronunciation /skəˈnɛktədi/ of Schenectady is not immediately obvious, but neither is it counterintuitive.
See Wikipedia:IPA for English for guides to the IPA symbols used, and WP:United States dictionary transcription for a guide to the US dictionary symbols used.
Read more about List Of Names In English With Counterintuitive Pronunciations: Place Names in Britain and Ireland, Place Names in Canada, Place Names in Australia, Place Names in Other English-speaking Countries, Given Names
Famous quotes containing the words list of, list, names and/or english:
“Religious literature has eminent examples, and if we run over our private list of poets, critics, philanthropists and philosophers, we shall find them infected with this dropsy and elephantiasis, which we ought to have tapped.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Feminism is an entire world view or gestalt, not just a laundry list of women’s issues.”
—Charlotte Bunch (b. 1944)
“A name? Oh, Jesus Christ. Ah, God, I’ve been called by a million names all my life. I don’t want a name. I’m better off with a grunt or a groan for a name.”
—Bernardo Bertolucci (b. 1940)
“Viewed freely, the English language is the accretion and growth of every dialect, race, and range of time, and is both the free and compacted composition of all.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)