Commonly Mispronounced Words 9

This is a topic about which I can write reams. However there was a recent article by Sakuntala Narasimhan in the magazine Vidura, which kind of sparked off this mail. The Nobel prize winner Venkataraman Ramakrishnan is another person who sparked this mail off. Now the name is Venkataraman and is supposed to be pronounced as 'when-cut-a-raaman' or in Devanagari 'वेंकटरामन' and yet, even seasoned announcers will announce the name as 'when-cut-rum-un'. It cannot really be that difficult!

Commonly Mispronounced Words 8

If you want to have a smooth finish on your walls before you paint it with expensive emulsions, what would you use. Did you say 'putty'? Well you are absolutely right. Thats a cement like material which is used for the above purpose. But if you pronounced it as 'पुट्टी' then you have made two errors.

One, you used the wrong vowel sound - 'oo' instead of 'uh' i.e. 'उ' instead of 'अ'

Two, you doubled the consonant sound - 'tt' instead of 't' i.e. 'ट्ट' instead of 'ट'

The point no. 2 is a common Indian error because of our predilection for the 'paPPoo' and 'muNNee' sounds. I will feature it in a detailed entry soon.

But the funny thing is that the guys who make the products 'JK Cement' or Birla themselves call the product 'पुट्टी' or see it as a combination of 'put' and 'tea'. The correct pronunciation is of course "पटी" or a combination of 'per' and 'tea'.

I think the marketers do not use the correct pronunciation because they think the people will not understand it. But that is stupid, when you are showing the product on the screen and pronounce it the right way, people will learn the right way. That is why I get really irritated if people in mass media do not make the extra effort to get it right. And then again there are those, who would say, in English it is 'पटी' but in Hindi it is 'पुट्टी'!

God help India!

Commonly Mispronounced Words 7

I was sitting in the newsroom one day and chatting with a newsreader. We were talking about how gaffes were made in pronunciation. Then she told me about one word, which a large proportion of the population, including the English educated people, mispronounce. And that word is, SPORTS. Sounds shocking isn't it? But it is true!

Most of us approximate the sound of 'OH' in Sports to the 'OH' sound in 'Golmaal'. So it is pronounced as 'स्पोर्ट्स' - whereas the correct pronunciation would be closer to (though not exactly) 'स्पॉर्ट्स'.

The 'OH' sound in Sports is actually a long vowel and hence the vowel sound should be slightly longer, something like "स्पअऑर्ट्स"

If the vowel sound is shortened, it will sound dangerously close to 'SPOTS' "स्पॉट्स".

So, next time you listen to this word on the broadcast media or hear any friend or colleague pronounce it, watch how they pronounce it.

Commonly Mispronounced Words - 6

Another word which is commonly mispronounced on even the official newsmedia is 'tier'. Ever heard something called the railway bulletin on the radio. When they give you the status of reservations, check out the word 'tier'. It is always pronounced as 'tyre', whereas the correct pronunciation is 'tear'. It is surprising how many people pronounce it wrongly. I once accosted a Hindi announcer who was pronouncing it as 'tyre'. She very coolly told me

"Hindi mein 'tyre' hee bolte hai.n"

I could barely conceal a smile. What all justifications people find for their frailties!

'Th' in English

One day a friend came to me (he knew of my radio background) and said. What a funny RJ she is (he was referring to an RJ on AIR Rainbow FM who had been a colleague)? She says 'those' in such a funny manner. It almost sounds like 'Hose' or 'woes'. I doubled up with laughter. The poor RJ. Being ridiculed for being right.

Now the correct pronunciation of 'th' in 'those' and in 'the' and in 'then' is closer to the 'z' sound in English than the 'द' sound that most Indian speakers approximate it to. If you have read the word 'Ramadan' in English text referring to the Islamic holy month and wondered why 'd' was used instead of 'z'; then the answer lies in the correct pronunciation of the phoneme 'th'.

There is a similar problem in the pronunciation of the word 'hadees' written in English as 'Hadith' which stems from the correct pronunciation of the 'th' used in words like 'health' and 'thing'. But that I will feature some other day.