title: [Reprint] Geek Dictionary: Words Chinese Internet Users Love to Mispronounce
date: 2021-07-06 11:13:54
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- Sharing
tags: - Reprint
- China
- Internet
- Love
- Mispronounce
- Words
- Geek
- Dictionary
This article is reproduced from: Words Chinese Internet Users Love to Mispronounce: Geek Dictionary - TechNode
Origin#
One day, Robin and his friend Allen said, "Hey, can your Kulumu access the Guitar Ha Bu? Can you help me download a Youban picture? I'm planning to learn some Dijianggou recently."
"Oh, you mean Chrome..." (fictional scenario)
I don't know if you have encountered the above situation. Due to misreading of phonetics, abbreviations, foreign languages, and other reasons, many English words on the Internet are mispronounced. In some communication processes, it is even necessary to understand each other's meaning through spelling.
To solve this problem, we have compiled a series of words that Chinese Internet users love to mispronounce and created a small program called "Geek Dictionary", which includes four directions: development, design, product, and media.
Why are they mispronounced?#
We believe there are three main reasons: misreading of phonetics, misreading of abbreviations, and foreign words.
Misreading of Phonetics#
Many times, we often think we know the pronunciation of unfamiliar words and are unwilling to look up the correct phonetics. This is also a common reason why most words are mispronounced.
Here are two simple examples.
- Safari is Apple's browser, and its correct pronunciation is [səˈfɑri]. Many friends are used to pronouncing it as [沙发瑞].
- Chrome is Google's browser, and its correct pronunciation is [kroʊm], but it is often pronounced as [扣肉米].
For these originally ordinary English words, you only need to look up the original phonetics to correct the pronunciation.
Misreading of Abbreviations#
The problem of misreading abbreviations is a bit more complicated. It is generally divided into three cases: initialism, syllabic abbreviation, and spelling simplification.
Initialism
JPEG is the abbreviation of "Joint Photographic Experts Group," which currently refers to a standard method of image compression with loss and is also an image format. The widely circulated correct pronunciation is [ˈdʒeɪpeɡ], but many friends read it as [J-P-G].
Which pronunciation is correct?
There is no strict rule for the pronunciation of initialisms. For example, another common image format, PNG, is the abbreviation of "Portable Network Graphics." Most people read it as [P-N-G], but its official pronunciation is [pɪŋ]. Few people read it that way.
- NATO, BIOS, SaaS, etc. are read as acronyms.
- WTO, NBA, CIA, etc. are pronounced letter by letter.
So we believe that both the "acronym pronunciation" and the "letter-by-letter pronunciation" are acceptable. Basically, if it can be read as a word, read it directly; otherwise, read it letter by letter.
Syllabic Abbreviation
Syllabic abbreviation is a method of using part of a word as an abbreviation, and its pronunciation is also based on the original pronunciation of the word.
The most common example is App, which is the syllabic abbreviation of "application" and is not an initialism. So its correct pronunciation should be [æp], and it should not be written as APP, but as App or app.
However, in China, the pronunciation [A-P-P] using the initialism method is more popular and has given it another conventional pronunciation.
There are also some words that use syllabic abbreviations, such as laboratory - lab, mathematics - math, which also take the original pronunciation.
Spelling Simplification
Spelling simplification only reduces the writing but does not change the pronunciation of the word. This kind of abbreviation usually adds a dot "." at the end.
For example, Dr. is the abbreviation of Doctor, Co. is the abbreviation of Company, St. is the abbreviation of Street. The correct pronunciation should follow the original pronunciation of the word.
Foreign Words#
There are also some words that originate from non-English languages, and generally have multiple pronunciations.
For example, SUSE (Software und System-Entwicklung, which means "software and system development" in German) is a German version of the Linux operating system. Although the official pronunciation is "su-sa," the pronunciations [ˈsuːsə] (English) and [ˈzuːzə] (German) are also widely circulated, and there is no absolute correct pronunciation.
IKEA also has two pronunciations: [ɪˈkêːa] (Swedish) and [aɪˈkiːə] (English).
Conclusion#
The original intention of developing the "Geek Dictionary" is not to nitpick or forcibly correct everyone's pronunciation. After all, the purpose of language is communication, and it is normal for some words to have different pronunciations in different contexts.
As for how many ways there are to write the character "茴，" it is not that important. In the process of exploring the different pronunciations of these words, we have learned a lot about the history of the Internet and enjoyed it.
Finally, we need to clarify that we are not language professionals, and most of the word pronunciations come from the Internet. If you find any incorrect entries, please provide us with feedback and corrections. Thank you for your support.
One last small test:
Azure, GNOME, GNU, null, ASUS, IasS, Kubernetes, can you pronounce these words correctly?