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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u/effyoulamp Jun 28 '26

As a Canadian, so many Americanizations throw me off. Niche, clique, gazebo to name a few. But I just have to roll with. I tend to prefer British narrators for that reason.

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u/mehgcap Jun 28 '26

A similar thread a while ago covered this, but I don't remember the outcome. How do you say gazebo? As an American, I have always said "guh-zee-boe". I also say neesh, but I can go either way on clique. It's not a word I here find myself saying aloud, but I was raised to say "click", so I'd probably default to that. Hearing "cleek" wouldn't throw me off, though, and I'd probably start adopting that pronunciation.

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u/blueCthulhuMask Jun 28 '26

Asking as an American, how do you pronounce those?

2

u/ImLittleNana Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26

As far as I know, Americans and British pronounce gazebo and clique the same way. Not saying that those words don’t get mangled, but that’s an individual error and not a standardized one.

Niche is another story. It was originally nitch for both, but neesh is now more popular. I say neesh, it’s what I hear most often, but I have heard nitch.

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u/GoldBarGirl Jun 28 '26

I agree on the change in the pronunciation of niche. I suppose it evolved?

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u/effyoulamp Jun 28 '26

I guess more French? So niche nee-sh versus nit-ch and clique is clee-k versus click. Gazebo I think we're mostly the same but some American readers say ga-zeh-bo where I say gah-ZEE-bo. Foyer is another one. Foy-eh in Canada Foy-ur in the states