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Why do so many people mispronounce Neil's name?


Rush Didact
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Seriously, how do you get "purt" from Peart?

 

There's an A in there.

 

This really grinds my gears. Can't you hear it in your ears? It's clear Neil was near and dear, I fear a tear seared my bleary, weary eyes last year.

 

EAR.

 

They even made a joke out of the mispronunciation in a major movie, where Neil himself says his own name, and people STILL get it wrong.

 

http://youtu.be/eR8fsJxRVXs

 

What gives? Why does this persist?

Edited by Rush Didact
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Bear. Dear. Dearth. Earth. Heart. Pear. Tear. Tear. Wear. Year.

 

What the ear hears in "ear."

:goodone:

 

Plus, "pert" is both a fairly common word and a popular shampoo, so the mistake makes sense.

 

As to why Californians butcher so many Spanish names of their cities, now that's a mystery.

Edited by goose
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While the Peert pronunciation is common in words ending in "ear", it is quite rare for words that end in "ear" plus another consonant. In that case, the Pert pronunciation is fairly common and that's probably why it is mispronounced so much. Notably, there aren't a ton of commonly used English words ending in this pattern that I could come up with.

 

Pert:

Earn/learn/yearn, Earl/pearl, heard, earth/dearth, search

 

Part:

Heart

 

Peert:

Beard

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Bear. Dear. Dearth. Earth. Heart. Pear. Tear. Tear. Wear. Year.

 

What the ear hears in "ear."

 

Except out of all of those, only earth (and dearth) rhyme with "pert". The vowel sound is different in all of them.

Yeah, I just meant to demonstrate the variability in pronunciation as a way to suggest why so many people might hear it differently in their own minds. When I was a kid, I assumed his name rhymed with "Heart." At some point in high school, a friend told me it sounded like "Pert." I didn't learn the correct punctuation until later.

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English is weird.

Apricot.

Tomato.

Aunt.

Peart.

Nobody agrees on these pronunciations.

 

I agree on these pronunciations. "A great mind thinks alike!"

 

But seriously, one can't help but feel sorry for those learning English from a non-native starting point. The British Isles was a place where all of its inhabitants, and their neighboring lands, met to create one heck of an amalgamation: Old Norse, Latin, Brittonic, Old French . . . the list goes on and on.

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English is weird.

Apricot.

Tomato.

Aunt.

Peart.

Nobody agrees on these pronunciations.

 

I agree on these pronunciations. "A great mind thinks alike!"

 

But seriously, one can't help but feel sorry for those learning English from a non-native starting point. The British Isles was a place where all of its inhabitants, and their neighboring lands, met to create one heck of an amalgamation: Old Norse, Latin, Brittonic, Old French . . . the list goes on and on.

English is a bunch of languages standing on each other's shoulders wearing a trenchcoat.

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English is weird.

Apricot.

Tomato.

Aunt.

Peart.

Nobody agrees on these pronunciations.

 

Three of those are common nouns; one is a proper noun. More than that, it's the name of a person.

 

Human beings are given the exclusive and inalienable right to name exactly two things whatsoever way they choose to: their children and themselves. (With the corollary that children can rename themselves when they become old enough to be a legal 'themself'.) If I tell you my name is Zaphod Beeblebrox, and I've filled out the requisite government forms to make it so, then calling me anything else would be wrong, in the sense that 1 + 1 = 3 is wrong. That is my name. I declared it so.

 

We don't have that power over any other object or concept in the entire universe; literally every other noun in every language everywhere on Earth is negotiated and subject to dissenting opinions. Your pronunciation of 'aunt' is no more right or wrong than mine is.

 

It's quite remarkable when you think about it, actually.

Edited by Rush Didact
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It doesn’t really bother me… To be honest, I’ve heard “Purrt” all my life. Just like PEARL is pronounced “Purrl” or the name Earl… It wasn’t until I started listening to interviews and even hanging out on these Internet forums that I learned the proper pronunciation. I’d be willing to bet that the vast majority of us didn’t start off pronouncing Neil’s last name properly. I’ve even seen people that knew him personally mis-pronounce it.
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How do you pronounce Pearl, the drum company?

 

"Pee-ral"

 

And Tama is "Taw-mah" and Ludwig is "Lood-Veeg" and Drum Workshop is "Droom warks hop"

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