Yeah, There's No Way I'm Saying That

Sometimes you can mispronounce things with grace and dignity (really, no one expects you to speak every language, and thus, when pronouncing things in foreign languages, people usually give you leeway). However, a great majority of the time, you just kind of look stupid when you mispronounce things (sorry Aunt Ginny for using the s-word). Occasionally, like when reading passages of Homer's Iliad or Hesiod's Works and Days (a more frequent occurrence for me than you'd think), you just have to acknowledge with grace that there's no way you are going to be able to pronounce that strange, strange word and just move on. You probably don't read ancient Greek stuff out loud very much (or maybe you do, in which case, I'm sorry for making assumptions), but I can think of lots of times in normal people's live where you come across something unpronounceable.

For instance, I was looking at my handy-dandy world map this morning (no, but really, my shower curtain has a map of the world, so I really was just looking at a map of the world leisurely this morning) and noticed a number of unpronounceable cities that I'm pretty sure I couldn't manage with any grace. For instance, Mongolia's bustling tourist metropolis of Dalandzadagad or the Russian isle of Severnaya Zemlya. I tried saying them, but it just kind of sounds like I've gotten a stutter (for the Mongolian one) or that I'm swallowing my tongue (for the Russian one). You might argue that you won't be visiting Mongolia or Russia anytime soon, but difficult to pronounce place names don't stop inside our borders. Take for instance the lovely town of Puyallup, where locals will look at you funny if you pronounce it wrong ( it's Pew-al-up, in case you were wondering). Another example is Pennsylvania's Schuylkill River. Unless you live here, you probably won't know how to pronounce it (and if you live here and can pronounce it, you probably don't remember how to spell it).

There's a whole world of mispronunciations out there waiting to make you seem silly. If you're willing to just power through and pronounce whatever it is completely wrong, more power to you (this is my mom's preferred method- hi mom). But if you're like me and are terribly afraid of looking dumb, then my best advice is just to keep quiet until you hear someone else say it. Or you can just completely avoid saying the name altogether (this is what pronouns and such were invented for).