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How Do YOU Pronounce Athlete's Names?


dolphins91

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Czech names like Marek Zidlicky and Tomas Plekanec bother me. I say "Zid-LITCH-kee" and "Ple-KANN-itch", but I've heard "Zid-LICKY" (which I know is wrong), "Zid-LITS-kee", and "Ple-kan-ETS".

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One that's always frustrated be is Stéphane Robidas. I hear people say it with a hard 'S' like "Row-Bid-ahs". It's pronounced with a silent H, so "Row-bid-ah" or "Row-bee-dah" (Both are technically correct).

I say Robidas Row-bee-dah. Another one too is Marek Mazanec (Backup goalie for Preds) can be pronounced mazz-an-ik, mezza-nic, ma-zanicks, or ma-zannits, pretty weird

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A couple on the Bruins.

I hear Milan Lucic pronounced a variety of ways.

I've always said Mil-ahn Lou-cheech

I've also heard Zdeno Chara pronounced more like Chair-ah. I say Char-ah.

Also in the NHL, I hear Subban a couple was.

I say Soo-bahn. Others say Soo-ban.

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Even with English words our tongues reorder letters occasionally. Take "comfortable" for example. When speaking the "t" is switched before the "r".

Yeah, if you're a goober.

Tomas Plekanec...I pronounce it "Pleck-ann-ick"....but there's a few variations the Habs commentators, teammates, reporters, fans, etc. use. "Pleck-ann-etch" or "Pleck-ann-icks" being the most common.

Czech names like Marek Zidlicky and Tomas Plekanec bother me. I say "Zid-LITCH-kee" and "Ple-KANN-itch", but I've heard "Zid-LICKY" (which I know is wrong), "Zid-LITS-kee", and "Ple-kan-ETS".

(edit: Stanislav Neckář is the one I was thinking of...how did "nets-cash" come out of that??)

C represents "ts" in Slavic languages that use the Latin alphabet. The hacek on the R adds a "zh" sound to the R: e.g., famous Czech composer Antonin Dvořak, which is pronounced duh-VORR-zhock, like "Jacques."

An interesting instance is Pavel Datsyuk, who is a Russian of Croatian descent. His name in Croatian would be "Dacjuk," with the c representing the ts sound and the j representing the y sound. But being Russian, his name has been transliterated into the Cyrillic script, and then back into Latin for NHL purposes. At any rate, everyone just says "datt-sook."

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About eight or nine years back there was a guy who played on the Utah Utes, became Steelers and then later Jaguars fullback by the name of Chris Fuamatu-Ma'afala. No one in Pittsburgh cared to try to pronounce it right so they just took to calling him Chris Motherf*****. Along that same line I remember some dude calling into to that show Mark Maddon had...and jacked up Troy Polamalu's last name so bad someone else took it and turned it into a parody song...that ended up becoming a local radio "hit". He called him "Puh-LLAMA-loo".

(All that really makes me wish former Navy QB Kaipo-Noa Kamehameha Kaheaku-Enhada had made it into the NFL...as a QB...for the express purpose of laughing at the prospect of NFL announcers dreading the thought of having to say his name x amount of times per game.)

*Disclaimer: I am not an authoritative expert on stuff...I just do a lot of reading and research and keep in close connect with a bunch of people who are authoritative experts on stuff. 😁

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I couldn't for the life of me pronounce Dale Sveums name until I saw a video that talked about him (I think it was a Cubs broadcast from when he was their manager). I pronounced it as S-vee-um until I learned that it was actually pronounced S-vay-um.

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Francois Beauchemin

Bo-sha-may? Bo-sha-meh? Bo-sha-men? Bo-sha-min?

I find myself (and announcers) cycling through all of them.

Also, Bryzgalov - Brizz-galov not Breez-ga-lov. Getzlaf - Getz-laff not Getz-loff. Teemu Selanne - Tay-mu Se-law-nee not Tee-mu Se-lah-nee.

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I feel like this needs to be a standalone hockey thread all its own...can't nobody pronounce none of them daggone names right. :P

I think the penultimate WTF name was that one dude whose last name didn't sound nothing like how it was spelled (edit: Stanislav Neckář is the one I was thinking of...how did "nets-cash" come out of that??)

To avoid confusion he introduces himself as Stan (neck-AR). Which to those who know him, only adds to the confusion.

Bye-FOOG-lee-in is too fun to not be right.

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Even with English words our tongues reorder letters occasionally. Take "comfortable" for example. When speaking the "t" is switched before the "r".

Yeah, if you're a goober.

As always, nice of you to once again grace us all with your tolerant perspective, and although some things vary by region, I'm sure the majority of the 430,000,000+ native English speakers won't appreciate being called a goober. I've had Canadian, British, Irish, South African, Kiwi, and American coworkers from every corner, and I can honestly say that few, if any, say all four syllables in "com-fort-a-bul".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metathesis_(linguistics)

See the word "comf-tur-bul" in that link? The t and r are flipped. How do you pronounce WedNESday?

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