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Archive for 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. The latter are known as heterophonic names (the opposite of
homophones, which are written differently but pronounced the same).
Excluded are the numerous spellings which fail to make the pronunciation obvious without actually being at odds with it: for example, the pronunciation /skəˈnɛktədi/[1][2] of Schenectady is not immediately obvious, but neither is it counterintuitive.
See
Help:IPA for English for guides to the IPA symbols used, and variations depending on dialect.[n 1]
Isaiah Canaan – /ˈkænən/ (as in the American English pronunciation of "cannon") — compare with the common AmE pronunciation of /ˈkeɪnən/ for the
land of Canaan cf. West Virginia's.
^For towns near the cusp of two dialect regions, both variants are usually heard, and wider still for important cities or even within them. Examples in that article include
New York and
Bath
^French for "Bay of Hope", ironically pronounced "Bay Despair"