Lilac, lilac or lilac? It's obvious.

April 1, 2021 6:32 PM

How to Pronounce Lilac

For some reason I find this video very entertaining....

....Yeah anyway, for what it's worth, I pronounce it as lilock.

posted by ashbury (29 comments total)

Currently on my couch in a post-7-hours-of-zoom-meetings stupor and this really worked for me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
posted by too bad you're not me at 6:45 PM on April 1, 2021

Ah go for Lllanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.
posted by sammyo at 7:17 PM on April 1, 2021 [2 favorites]

I’m ok with the way Jeff Buckley pronounces it.
posted by Devils Rancher at 7:41 PM on April 1, 2021 [2 favorites]

I was high and listened to a bunch of these and I approve.
posted by tofu_crouton at 7:41 PM on April 1, 2021 [2 favorites]

10 seconds on how to pronounce jus.
posted by krisjohn at 8:21 PM on April 1, 2021 [3 favorites]

In my mind (which thank god is not high) this is being narrated by Rowan Atkinson as the jewelry salesman in Love Actually.
posted by HotToddy at 10:04 PM on April 1, 2021

What's up with the framing of this post? I was expecting some alternate pronunciations or discussion or something based on the title and commentary. Instead it's just your standard foreign language learning program pronunciation key for the word lilac. Apparently part of a series of similar plant name pronunciation guides. (The repetition is an important feature in such a video or audio clip, so you can practice and listen for small enunciation details in words that have unfamiliar phonemes or sound combinations.)

Though the speaker's voice is particularly calm and pleasant, and he could possibly find success with an ASMR channel as well.
posted by eviemath at 10:08 PM on April 1, 2021

I was curious and clicked through to the channel's "Uploads" page, and there are hundreds of these uploaded within the last couple of months at least, a quick sampling of which suggest they all have the exact same format. Maybe there's a lot more than that, I just stopped scrolling at some point. Each of them seems to have a few dozen to a few hundreds views. "Oh, okay, ha ha, this is funny," I thought to myself. "Someone's created this channel as a weird dadaist joke project. Nice."

But no.

Go to the channel's main page, and see that prior to at least a year ago there's a whole bunch of normal-seeming videos about wine, with titles like "Inside Hennessy | How Cognac is Made?" and "1855 Classification Bordeaux Wine 🍷 How, Why, What Now?", presented by someone (presumably Julien Miguel) who sounds nothing like the voice in these "how to pronounce" videos. Many of these have hundreds of thousands of views. And yet these are not totally unconnected: several of the videos featured on the main channel page have titles like "Saying Wine Words | Pronunciation Guide A to Z" and "How to Pronounce Moët & Chandon?"

Is the Julien Miguel who presented videos about wine still the creator of these "how to pronounce" videos? How did he go from making popular videos about wine to making dozens of absurd 1-minute videos every week demonstrating the pronunciation of various English words for an audience of a few hundred?

There is a story here.
posted by biogeo at 10:25 PM on April 1, 2021 [10 favorites]

Correctly, i.e. 'lylack'.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 12:09 AM on April 2, 2021 [4 favorites]

This turned out to be unexpectedly interesting for all its mildly amusing sound.  I see Lilac, and I hear him say lilac, and I think of course, that's how you say it, but even though I'm four decades removed from a childhood in Tennessee, it left my I's permanently tweaked.   And I have to admit that when I I say it, it comes out a lot closer to "lah-luhk" than lilac.

I can hear those long I's and I can pronounce them, but left to my own devices they'll generally slip back into those drawling I's, to the bemusement of my friends here out west when they notice.

I was sure the Welsh town was going to be this little bit of the weather caster, but was pleasantly mistaken. His little self-satisfied bob at the end makes me laugh.
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 1:31 AM on April 2, 2021 [1 favorite]

My favourite source for pronunciation guides is Forvo there are a billion of these short videos on YouTube and at least half of them are "wrong". Forvo gives you a sample of different accents from around the world (self submitted) so you can see how much variation there is in how a word is pronounced.
posted by Lanark at 2:16 AM on April 2, 2021 [2 favorites]

It's "yanny"
posted by Foosnark at 4:21 AM on April 2, 2021 [1 favorite]

I was curious and clicked through to the channel's "Uploads" page, and there are hundreds of these uploaded within the last couple of months at least, a quick sampling of which suggest they all have the exact same format. Maybe there's a lot more than that, I just stopped scrolling at some point. Each of them seems to have a few dozen to a few hundreds views. "Oh, okay, ha ha, this is funny," I thought to myself. "Someone's created this channel as a weird dadaist joke project. Nice."


Or, as I noted above, someone is tutoring/teaching English language learners. Describing other people learning a new language as "a weird dadaist joke project" is... well, I'll be generous and chalk it up to the date, I guess.
posted by eviemath at 4:23 AM on April 2, 2021 [1 favorite]

Growing up on Long Island (aka Lawn Guyland), it was Lye-Lack. Here in Rochester, NY (home of the Lilac Festival, it's on this year!) it's Lye-Lock. I love regional accents.
posted by tommasz at 5:40 AM on April 2, 2021 [3 favorites]

If you've ever opened your mouth at a meeting and pronounced a word the way it reads and had people look at you like you are a recently defrosted caveperson, these little pronunciation videos are invaluable.

Lye-lack.
posted by kimberussell at 6:21 AM on April 2, 2021 [7 favorites]

There are a zillion language channels like this. Most of them at least bother to have a native speaker of the language they're purporting to be an exemplar for. Not sure what Euro-guy thinks he's doing, unless it's a bold move to claim Euro-English is now its own subdialect of the language now along with British, American, etc.

Anyway I say lilac like I imagine Elizabeth Taylor would have said it in Suddenly Last Summer, in her speech about hothouse flowers. I'm not certain she does say the word but I can hear it in an intensely drawled out (albeit fabricated) Southern accent. That first syllable transforms into a magnificent diphthong.
posted by Nelson at 7:28 AM on April 2, 2021 [1 favorite]

Lye-lock. Anyone with me?
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 8:28 AM on April 2, 2021 [2 favorites]

I was thinking the background noise was fascinating and compelling, somehow. I almost want to isolate it for an ambient music project. But I too wonder at the purpose of these. They remind my the mysterious Cold War “numbers stations.” The background noise might indeed be a signal.
posted by sjswitzer at 8:44 AM on April 2, 2021 [1 favorite]

I checked a few of his videos and Julien seems to be doing pretty well at providing an accurate pronunciation, he got 'alba' in Gaelic right.
posted by Lanark at 8:57 AM on April 2, 2021 [1 favorite]

Not sure what Euro-guy thinks he's doing

IKR? Maybe this is the YouTube equivalent of English As She Is Spoke.
posted by mpark at 9:47 AM on April 2, 2021

This post makes me uncomfortable.
posted by lilac girl at 9:53 AM on April 2, 2021 [9 favorites]

My fave pronunciation video is this one for the lawn game ‘Kubb’.
posted by soy bean at 10:27 AM on April 2, 2021

Or, as I noted above, someone is tutoring/teaching English language learners.

These aren't mutually exclusive. It's hard for me not to see this as intentionally humorous given the wordy, off-kilter formula surrounding each pronunciation. If this is a useful resource for learning to pronounce a word, it's useful because it's being presented with a humorous style. Also, many of the words being pronounced aren't English words at all. Anyway, take a look at the list of videos, there's a lot of them, and more every few hours.
posted by biogeo at 10:45 AM on April 2, 2021

Among his wine-related videos: “Does a lighter work? Open wine without a corkscrew?”

spoiler: maybe, but he doesn’t succeed.
posted by sjswitzer at 11:18 AM on April 2, 2021

I just clicked through to this channel the other weekend as I'm using Welsh names in something I'm writing and I live in fear I will have to pronounce them. I'd like to know the story behind the story here so to speak, because I did notice the wine connection and was like: is this accurate...?

I saw an ad too, so there you go.
posted by warriorqueen at 12:46 PM on April 2, 2021

When I’m thinking about it, and pronouncing it carefully in isolation, it’s LY-lack.

But when I’m casually using the word, I’m more apt to relax the vowel on that second syllable, so that it becomes a schwa, and thus: LY-luck.

This is a common thing in US English, by the way (relaxing a second syllable vowel into a schwa).
posted by darkstar at 12:56 PM on April 2, 2021 [1 favorite]

The thing that I learned about Lilacs from touring a Lilac garden is that the older original Lilacs smell zingy kinda like camphor, and the later Lilac hybrids are more sweet & mellow. Where we live Lilac flowering is a brief May experience.
posted by ovvl at 5:34 PM on April 2, 2021

I have no problem pronouncing lilac. I need help with Fagradalsfjall.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 10:50 PM on April 2, 2021

darkstar, this reminds me of a common thing among older Americans, which is to pronounce "robot" as "ROW-butt" instead of "ROW-bott". Given the original is probably closer to "rah-BOAT" it's hard to get upset at a 1950s radio play for pronouncing a relatively new loanword kind of unexpectedly to a 21st century ear.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 3:36 AM on April 5, 2021