Reply 20 of 29, by shamino
- Rank
- l33t
Differences in pronunciation are mildly curious and amusing sometimes, as long as people are good natured about it.
What gets to me though is when some people (not this thread) become adamant that everybody pronounce things the same way. I don't mean this thread, but people sometimes get really aggressive about this stuff on the internet in general and especially on youtube.
I remember seeing a gameplay video a long time ago where somebody got so frustrated with people arguing over how he pronounced some fictional character's name, that he killed the character off.
My personal attitude is that I don't concede much authority to a creator or trademark owner to decide how their made up words should be pronounced. Maybe it's reasonable to say that I should grant them that, but I just don't - I perceive it to be an unnecessary, and thus arrogant, overstep. If people aren't pronouncing something "correctly", then maybe they should have spelled it differently, or better yet they should just ask themselves why they care so much.
I don't recall if I've ever heard the terms "Riva" (Diva) or "Ti" (Tee-Eye) pronounced by an nVidia (in-Vidia) marketing spokesman, but even if I did, it wouldn't really matter to me. They'd have to issue an official press release to clarify that such pronunciation was officially endorsed and not just the preference of that one person. Upon issuing such a press release, I'd be asking myself why these highly paid people sat around a conference table and even discussed this. The stupidity of that would make me care even less about their opinion.
The creator of .GIF is entitled to his opinion, but I think he's overstepping his self-assumed authority if he's actually trying to tell the world how to pronounce a sequence of 3 letters which are not even a real word. I don't know if he actually pushes people about this, but if he does, then he should get over himself.
I think what happens with people in general is that we read things to ourselves in text which are almost never said aloud, or are only spoken among a small circle of friends. As a result, we get very comfortable with our own imagined pronunciation, and never hear anything to contradict it. Then years later, we're shocked to realize other people didn't interpret the same pronunciation as we did. Most people can take that in stride, but some people are control freaks and get silly about it.
There are so many words that have been at the center of pronunciation controversies. Ryu. Taito. Ninja Gaiden. GIF. VIA. Probably hundreds more.
And some real words too: Solder. Aluminum. Herb. Those differences are cultural.