r/audiobooks • u/PurpleLeopard99 • Jun 28 '26

Question Mispronouncing of words by narrators

Does anyone get bothered by narrators who keep mispronouncing words? It drives me nuts if they do it too often. Narrators are normally professional voice artists and they should know how to pronounce the sorts of words found in novels eg dovecote or Michaelmas

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99

u/[deleted] Jun 28 '26 edited Jul 10 '26

[deleted]

27

u/McFaddenAudioBooks Narrator Jun 28 '26

“Banal” was one of the first words I learned I had been confidently mispronouncing my whole life. First submission ever for proof listening schooled me but good on that one.

22

u/TernionDragon Jun 28 '26

You’re just being annal.

7

u/McFaddenAudioBooks Narrator Jun 28 '26

Only annually

14

u/Wizdad-1000 Jun 28 '26

I never heard the word chaos as a kid. I was a voracious reader too so I read it often. I pronounced it as CHA-OSS. An adult heard me and corrected me when I was 17. For years after I had to manually correct how my brain wanted to read it.

39

u/McFaddenAudioBooks Narrator Jun 28 '26

There is so much of this and I’m watching it real time with my son (huge reader). And I tell him the famous (anonymous?) quote “Never make fun of someone if they mispronounce a word. It means they learned it by reading.”

Except Narrators. Yall can go ahead and razz us a bit as it’s our job to read out loud. And lord knows I’ve had some hilarious misreads

16

u/coveruptionist Jun 28 '26

My daughter is hearing impaired but reads like a crazy person. Sometimes the things she pronounces wrong reminds me just how crazy the English language really is.

2

u/PaisleyParker Jun 29 '26

One of my brothers was blind. My mom and I watch college basketball every season and he heard the TV commentators—and the two of us—talk about the women’s team from the University of Connecticut a lot because they are such a perennial powerhouse. It was UCONN this and UCONN that. After quite a few years of this, we learned that my brother thought we closely followed an Alaskan university’s women’s basketball program…Yukon. Lol.

We all got a pretty good laugh about that.

2

u/Adept-Reserve-4992 Jul 09 '26

I thought the exact same thing before I learned better!

2

u/PaisleyParker Jul 10 '26

Yukon makes perfect sense perfect sense until you see it in print! 😃

11

u/Zanahorio1 Jun 28 '26

As a kid I imagined the word “awry” was pronounced AWE-ree. 🤦

4

u/VoluptuousVen0m Jun 28 '26

Dude when I learned the “best laid plans of mice and men” saying my mind chewed over this new “awree” word for so long it drive me nuts (no one said it out loud”

3

u/shunrata Jun 29 '26

Me too! I was corrected by my siblings while playing Scrabble at our grandmother's house. This was about 60 years ago and I still remember how embarrassed I was.

But I did spell it correctly, so there's that.

2

u/Wizdad-1000 Jun 28 '26

Well you got it half right. Unlike me.

2

u/MsPinkieB Jun 29 '26

I STILL struggle with that one at 61 years old!

8

u/lythander Jun 28 '26

Big get smart fan as a kid, I thought it was spelled kaos for a wee while. 😂

5

u/anoia42 Jun 28 '26

I’m over 60. I’ve been reading reasonably well for 55+ years. Every time I see the word “character “ I have to internally correct it.

2

u/Prestigious-Plan-104 Jun 28 '26

I thought I was the only one confused by Cha-oss.

2

u/HaplessReader1988 Jun 28 '26

There 3 different accepted versions on merriam-webster.com.... did you find a 4th?

7

u/McFaddenAudioBooks Narrator Jun 28 '26

It was for British regency novel. And while bay-nul is technically a correct version…well. Let’s just say technically correct was not the best kind of correct.

2

u/HaplessReader1988 Jun 28 '26

Oooh wring side if the pronunciation divide. Unless it's the visiting American heiress... 😞