Phở -- it's soup!

August 13, 2011 7:26 PM

Pronunciationbook has many helpful Youtube videos for learners of American English. If you want to learn to pronounce things like bolognese, gyro, pwned or Ke$ha, pronunciationbook has you covered.
But in recent months, a competitor has popped up. Now, PronunciationManual can tell you how to pronounce such things as penis, Hulk Hogan, or milk argument.

The joke, of course, is that PronunciationManual looks just like pronunciationbook, but it pronounces everything incorrectly with a silly affected accent. Youtube's "related videos" algorithm often mixes the two of them together, causing potential problems for anyone who wants to casually browse Youtube for tips on how to speak English.
Comparisons:
Gucci: (book) (manual)
Givenchy: (book) (manual)
Ng: (book) (manual)
onomatopoeia: (book) (manual)
Porsche: (book) (manual)

posted by CrunchyFrog (58 comments total)

Also good (and frighteningly complete for a one-man, all-analog project): Tim Bowyer's Howjsay
posted by Rhaomi at 7:39 PM on August 13, 2011

This is very very very stupid, and I cannot stop loading them and laughing. Also it is really stupid.
posted by ManInSuit at 8:10 PM on August 13, 2011 [4 favorites]

Stupid but funny -- my favorite kind of humor.
posted by Deathalicious at 8:11 PM on August 13, 2011

Also, "owned" is not the correct pronunciation for the word pwned. The correct pronunciation is "pwned".
posted by Deathalicious at 8:19 PM on August 13, 2011 [5 favorites]

I am really trying to resist just posting more of these as I find them....


Okay. Resisting over.


panties

posted by ManInSuit at 8:22 PM on August 13, 2011 [4 favorites]

forget all these jonny-come-lately websites. The original is still the best: Pronouncify.com. It's voiced by an anonymous Princeton University student.
posted by inturnaround at 8:22 PM on August 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

hamburger
posted by zippy at 8:24 PM on August 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

Oh jeez, I fear I'm falling into a "related video" wormhole timesuck. The best part is, you don't know whether you're going to get the manual or the book. I am also laughing myself slightly silly, though.
posted by lesli212 at 8:41 PM on August 13, 2011

Also, "owned" is not the correct pronunciation for the word pwned. The correct pronunciation is "pwned".

This seems a little like arguing over how :P is pronounced.
posted by nebulawindphone at 8:56 PM on August 13, 2011

I think the whole idea of internet video humour is that it is short, and it it stupid. So a video that consists of just one word, made as stupid as possible - this means that the future of comedy is finally fully realized! Hurray! (I would say the particular video that represents the moment of the internet-comedy-singularity is, of course, penis.)
posted by ManInSuit at 8:57 PM on August 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

Ralph Fiennes.
posted by Redfield at 8:57 PM on August 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

θɛθɔθɪθ!
posted by nebulawindphone at 9:07 PM on August 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

(You know what would be even crueler, though? Just assembling a bunch of plausible mispronunciations. "Chai-pottle. Chai? Pottle. Chaipottle." "Guck-sy. Guck? See. Gucksy." Using that awful drunk-muppet voice on everything was pretty generous when you think about it.)
posted by nebulawindphone at 9:15 PM on August 13, 2011 [3 favorites]

somebody should come up with "Denunciation Guide" showing how to say the proper insults to apply to various people and things...

"Jersey Shore" denounced "cess-pool"
"Republican" denounced "molester"
"Google" denounced "evil"
"zombie" denounced "your boss"...
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:16 PM on August 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

WTF is going on here
posted by delmoi at 9:43 PM on August 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

Damn delmoi, beat me to it.
posted by Ahab at 9:45 PM on August 13, 2011

Wait yeah, I clicked on one video, got a bunch of 'pronunciation book' entries, then my first 'manual' entry was the Yves Saint Laurent video. Should have read the whole post before posting.
posted by delmoi at 10:00 PM on August 13, 2011

Feber. Rary. February.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 10:20 PM on August 13, 2011

The 'manual' is now my password generator.
posted by BurnChao at 10:30 PM on August 13, 2011

That voice is just so muppet on drugs.. Is Peter Jackson behind this? Or did someone just sit Frank Oz down with a dictionary, a bag of mushrooms bottle of fine malt, and a dictaphone?
posted by Ahab at 10:30 PM on August 13, 2011

Yes this is funny, but it dies bring back the memory of raising my hand in English class and saying " Well I really liked how in Anti-Gone" and my short, quiet ex-nun teacher dropping her mouth and interrupting " what?"

" Anti-gone?"

eyes bugging out "An-tig-on-e"

Me, quietly "Anne-tigonee?"

She relaxes, " Go on"
posted by The Whelk at 10:36 PM on August 13, 2011

Even better for words that English speakers do have trouble with. Ng. Phở.
posted by hattifattener at 12:14 AM on August 14, 2011

seriously, I thought the pronunciationbook was fake, that's now how you pronounce gyro - is it? Do you guys seriously pronounce gyro the same way you say euro?
posted by dabitch at 12:40 AM on August 14, 2011

I need to learn to close tags
posted by dabitch at 12:40 AM on August 14, 2011 [1 favorite]

I dunno, I switched to souvlaki to avoid confusion.
posted by NoraReed at 1:29 AM on August 14, 2011 [2 favorites]

Via nomyte's fantastic Sergey Minayev post, I learned a new word today that applies to what PronunciationBook is going for: orthoepy.

forget all these jonny-come-lately websites. The original is still the best: Pronouncify.com. It's voiced by an anonymous Princeton University student.
posted by inturnaround at 4:22 AM on August 14
Before I clicked through, I thought "I know some story about that. Did I meet the student involved? Who was that?" Then I googled.

I'd have more respect for Pronouncify.com if they spelled "selection" correctly in their registration process. Allegiance to my alma mater dictates that I shout "Princeton sucks!" in response.
posted by knile at 2:09 AM on August 14, 2011

Yee-ro, not yurro.
posted by Gordafarin at 2:33 AM on August 14, 2011

Somehow, the hamburger one made me laugh so hard I spit all over my keyboard. Not drinking anything. Just spit. Disgusting. But after the depress-a-thon of the Bachmann thread, just what I needed.
posted by Ducks or monkeys at 2:42 AM on August 14, 2011

Funnily manual's pronunciation of Ng is closer to the real thing.
posted by monocot at 2:59 AM on August 14, 2011

This is exactly how I imagine "Moleskine" is pronounced.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 4:16 AM on August 14, 2011 [2 favorites]

Holy shit, Americans pronounce it bollo-nyais-ay.

I thought that was a joke one when I first clicked on it.

and now I really fancy spag bol
posted by ArmyOfKittens at 4:38 AM on August 14, 2011

> Just assembling a bunch of plausible mispronunciations.

Ah, so American English isn't an elaborate put-on?
posted by scruss at 5:25 AM on August 14, 2011

scruss: "Ah, so American English isn't an elaborate put-on?"

Obligatory Izzard.
posted by ArmyOfKittens at 5:28 AM on August 14, 2011

Also, the PronunciationManual guy's voice reminds me of this.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 6:24 AM on August 14, 2011

Yet another potentially valuable guide that has opted to produce its work in the highest bandwidth-sucking format they could possibly find, rather than plaintext or, for the really hard ones, a standalone audio clip.

YouTube may well count as one of the greatest things on the internet, but also earns a whole lot of blame for single-handedly destroying the art of the tutorial.

And just as a cranky-old-man-filter peeve - People don't actually pronounce every foreign-import word as true to the original language. If you do pronounce them "correctly", people will tend to look at you funny and have no idea what you said. And what gives with NPR's annoying pedantry of apparently having an official "obscure word we think you should pronounce differently so we'll have every announcer say it at least three times per segment" of the week? And don't even get me started on calling it the pretentious "chipotle" rather than "smoked chili pepper" And when will those damned kids get off my lawn???
posted by pla at 6:32 AM on August 14, 2011

The pronunciation of penis should tell you everything you want to know about their seriousness.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 6:57 AM on August 14, 2011

MILF argument
posted by victors at 7:14 AM on August 14, 2011

Holy shit, Americans pronounce it bollo-nyais-ay.

I thought that was a joke one when I first clicked on it.

Real Americans pronounce it "spaghetti sauce." Ask someone in a grocery store what aisle the bolognese is in and I don't care how you pronounce it, you're gonna get a funny look.

But, yeah, England and America handle loan words differently. It's basically like the whole "gaRAAAHZH" vs. "GARridge" thing, I think.
posted by nebulawindphone at 8:08 AM on August 14, 2011

It's a car hole!
posted by The Whelk at 8:16 AM on August 14, 2011 [4 favorites]

nebulawindphone : It's basically like the whole "gaRAAAHZH" vs. "GARridge" thing, I think.

Hey, you try telling the zombie apocalypse where to park!
posted by pla at 8:17 AM on August 14, 2011 [1 favorite]

The one for "thesaurus" just made me completely lose it for three solid minutes.
posted by Golfhaus at 8:29 AM on August 14, 2011 [1 favorite]

Obligatory Izzard

From his act: "We pronounce it Herb, because there's an H there."

Oh really? How do you pronounce the word that means 60 minutes, smartass?
posted by Deathalicious at 9:08 AM on August 14, 2011 [2 favorites]

Oh, but don't forget the more deadpan PronOUnciationBook .
posted by vrogy at 9:13 AM on August 14, 2011

(I was hoping to link to Les Nessman's Chi-Chi Rodriguez but I can't find a video of it.)
posted by bentley at 10:03 AM on August 14, 2011

Deathalicious: "Oh really? How do you pronounce the word that means 60 minutes, smartass?"

"Morley Safer".
posted by ArmyOfKittens at 10:12 AM on August 14, 2011 [3 favorites]

People don't actually pronounce every foreign-import word as true to the original language. If you do pronounce them "correctly", people will tend to look at you funny and have no idea what you said.

People, I have found, are fond of ordering lahhhhtes and expressos. An ex of mine argued voiciferously that 'al dente' wasn't a real word and also that tortilla chips should be pronounced 'tort-iLLa', no matter how often I explained how the Spanish alphabet worked.

It's basically like the whole "gaRAAAHZH" vs. "GARridge" thing, I think.

Pronounced both ways in the UK, depending on where the speaker comes from. The former is a Home Counties/RP pronunciation (possibly the south in general?), the latter in the north. 'UK Garage' was certainly pronounced both ways.
posted by mippy at 10:36 AM on August 14, 2011

Do you guys seriously pronounce gyro the same way you say euro?

Yee-ro, not yurro.

I think what dabitch (dab-itch? duh-bitch? je-bitz?) was getting at is that New Yorkers mistakenly* pronounce the food item "gyro" as they would the first half of "gyroscope." That is mistaken and wrong. Of course it's pronounced like "euro."

*MISTAKEN and WRONG.
posted by psoas at 12:01 PM on August 14, 2011

(Except for the vowel sound, as you pointed out.)
posted by psoas at 12:03 PM on August 14, 2011

IILOVEIT, EYE LOUVRE ID, AYLUBBIT!

Also yes, New Yorkers say Gyro - as in the spinny thing, but everyone knows what we mean. Sadly more confusion ensues when we say "This device is too unstable, perhaps we should add a eurozone."
posted by Divine_Wino at 12:12 PM on August 14, 2011 [1 favorite]

mippy : People, I have found, are fond of ordering lahhhhtes and expressos.

Oh good lord. Consider yourself the winner of this round, Rabbit!

Expresso. Shoot me now lest I ever hear someone add that extra letter again.
posted by pla at 12:53 PM on August 14, 2011

No, see, it's pronounced "YEER-o-scope." It lets you zoom in on the spot where the kebab truck parks, so you can see whether they're open without having to put your boots on and go outside.

Ooh, can we fight about "ke-BOB" versus "ke-BAEB" next? That's one of my favorites!
posted by nebulawindphone at 1:46 PM on August 14, 2011

The thing is, my dear pla, is that people do it when they want to sound sophisticated. If it was just a big of cultural ignorance, it wouldn't grate so much. Usually this is barked whilst the coffee drinker is simultaneously talking on their mobile and ignoring the staff, too.

My first name is extremely difficult for non-native speakers to pronounce thanks to the hard-G and the double-ll. I've phoned shops to ask for things to be held to one side for me and on the ticket I have had 'Geeyan', 'Julien', 'Gulian', 'Jeninn' and many others, and as I deal with people from EU countries sometimes through work I've had calls from people who've only seen my name written down and struggle with how to say it (though I get the same thing on occasion with unfamiliar Celtic names - Caoimhe, Eimear, Aoife, taoisearch). I've been told 'banana' is a similarly difficult one to learn, as it's learning that the second 'a' is pronounced long and not short.
posted by mippy at 1:48 PM on August 14, 2011

I think "banana" varies regionally too, though, doesn't it? For my advisor, who's from somewhere in the south of England, it rhymes with "marijuana." But for most of the US, it rhymes with "bandana" — is that the "short a" pronunciation you're talking about?

Also, thanks for setting me straight on "garage."
posted by nebulawindphone at 1:59 PM on August 14, 2011

mippy : My first name is extremely difficult for non-native speakers to pronounce thanks to the hard-G and the double-ll.

In fairness, most people have probably seen that name and heard it most commonly pronounced as "Jillian" ("Anderson" as the obvious example, if that doesn't brand me indelibly as an old-school geek).

But as for my earlier rant, I consider names in an entirely different category. I don't care if you pronounce it "Fred", you have the right to decide what people call you.

That said, that does have its limits - No, I won't pronounce your name "my foamy lord and master". And as for "Sade", let's just not go there. ;)
posted by pla at 2:06 PM on August 14, 2011

Sorry, mixing up my Gs - it is pronounced the same as La Anderson. It seems to be a vocalisation that doesn't exist in Spanish at least.

(The worst part is always people deciding to shorten it despite the fact I will never introduce myself with that, given it's not my actual name. Yes, I'm stuffy about this.)
posted by mippy at 2:57 PM on August 14, 2011

Just another Metafilter moment when I was laughing so hard that my husband came in to check...and then realised that it was just Metafilter again.
posted by guster4lovers at 3:41 PM on August 14, 2011

It seems to be a vocalisation that doesn't exist in Spanish at least.

Many Spanish-speakers can't pronounce "Betsy." It comes out "Becksy" or "Bessie."
posted by bentley at 3:52 PM on August 14, 2011

Also, "owned" is not the correct pronunciation for the word pwned. The correct pronunciation is "pwned".

And the Welsh go on about how English is invading their language....
posted by vckeating at 2:56 AM on August 18, 2011 [3 favorites]