EGN NEWS DESK
Vice President Kamala Harris and breakout pop star Chappell Roan had been among the many 12 months’s most talked-about folks. Their names had been additionally among the many most mispronounced.
On Wednesday, the language-learning firm Babbel and closed-captioning firm The Captioning Group (TCG) launched an inventory of the phrases that information anchors, politicians and different public figures within the U.S. struggled with probably the most in 2024. The listing additionally supplies a retrospective of the 12 months’s most mentioned subjects and other people, from popular culture to politics.
“It’s a pleasant approach to sort of look again into the 12 months and see the whole lot that has occurred,” mentioned Esteban Touma, a linguistic and cultural professional at Babbel.
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Roan—whose hits embrace “Good Luck, Babe!”—shot to fame this 12 months and is nominated for six Grammy awards. According to the listing, her identify is pronounced CHAP-uhl ROHN, not SHA-pel ROW-an.
During Harris’ unsuccessful run for president this 12 months, her great-nieces took to the stage on the Democratic National Convention to clear up how one can say her first identify, pronounced COM-a-la.
Also making the listing was U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, whose final identify nonetheless leaves folks tongue-tied. During his 2020 presidential run, his marketing campaign made posters and T-shirts with the pronunciation “Boot-Edge-Edge” to assist.
Other phrases on the listing embrace:
— Dutch Kooikerhondje, pronounced COY-ker-HUND-che, is a breed of canine that made it’s means into the lexicon this 12 months. This is essentially as a result of Los Angeles Dodgers celebrity Shohei Ohtani has a Kooikerhondje known as Decoy who gained the hearts of followers whereas delivering a ceremonial first pitch.
— The identify of the actress Zendaya, who starred in Challengers, is commonly mispronounced as zen-DIE-uh, but it surely needs to be zen-DAY-a.
— Online fast-fashion big Shein is SHE-in, not SHEEN.
— Newly found exoplanet Speculoos-3b is pronounced SPEK-yuh-lohss three bee.
— Phryge, the mascot of the Paris Olympics, is pronounced FREE-je. It was a nod to the Phrygian cap, an emblematic accent of the French revolutionaries.
— Semaglutide, the drug in weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy, is pronounced sem-ah-GLOO-tide, not SEE-mah-gloo-tide.
— The final identify of Irish actor Barry Keoghan, who starred in Saltburn, is pronounced key-OH-gin.
Nancy Niedzielski, chair of the linguistics division at Rice University in Houston, factors out that a lot of the phrases on the listing are usually not English, so it’s not shocking that they might be mispronounced within the U.S. The key to saying them appropriately, she mentioned, would in all probability simply be listening to them spoken, she mentioned.
“There aren’t actually tips in need of understanding how orthology works in that language,” she mentioned.
Several of the phrases on the U.S. listing, together with Keoghan, Phryge and Shein, additionally made the listing for the U.Ok., which Babbel compiled with the assistance of the British Institute of Verbatim Reporters, a corporation for subtitling professionals.
Other phrases on the U.Ok. listing embrace flygskam, a Swedish time period pronounced FLEEG-skam, popularized by local weather activist Greta Thunberg, which interprets as “flight disgrace,” and the Chagos Islands, pronounced CHAY-goss, which made the listing after the British authorities this 12 months returned sovereignty of the long-contested Indian Ocean archipelago to Mauritius.
Touma, a local Spanish speaker, mentioned for those who can’t pronounce a phrase, it’s necessary to only maintain making an attempt.
“One of the issues we’ve got is our mouths are usually not educated to do these sounds that come from completely different languages,” he mentioned.
Touma admitted even he struggles with some phrases, together with Harris’ first identify. Even although he is aware of the right pronunciation, he mentioned, it’s onerous to get it right within the second when he’s in a dialog.
As Roan’s music gained recognition over the 12 months, it was attention-grabbing cultural second to look at as folks discovered to pronounce her first and final identify, he mentioned.
“The means we create understanding with one another is simply making an attempt to do this stuff,” Touma mentioned.
