Needs Help: No Pronunciation Guide

I hope I'm posting this in the right place, and that I'm not missing an existing thread. I think the best description of the problem is "Needs Help".

From what its description says, the "trope" No Pronunciation Guide seems to be intended to mean something like this: "Works don't always specify how to pronounce things, even when they're non-obvious."

The description goes on to describe a frequent consequence: fans of these works (or sometimes even actors, voice actors, or audiobook readers) disagree about how to pronounce names.

Much of the Examples section has degenerated into "Complaining About People Pronouncing Things Differently Than You Do" (the very Fan Dumb alluded to in the description), which produces natter. This is especially true of the entries that are about real-world words or names, rather than things that were made up out of whole cloth by some author and not given a pronunciation guide. The problematic examples fall into the following categories (sorry, this is going to get a little tedious):

1. Assertions that are simply false.

• Quote from the page: Native Maine residents refer to the city of Bangor as "Bang-gore" despite everyone outside of the state (including in Wales where the name originated) referring to it as "Bang-er".
  • Here are some Welsh speakers saying "Bangor" in Welsh:
    • "Ym Mangor 'nes i sylweddoli mai'r cwrs gorau oedd ym Mangor" (In Bangor, I realised that the best course was in Bangor)
    • "Mae Bangor hefyd, fel prifysgol, yn rhoi taliadau oherwydd fy mod yn astudio trwy'r Cymraeg" (Also, Bangor as a university gives tuition remittances because I'm studying through the medium of Welsh)
    • "Y peth gorau o astudio ym Mangor ydy…" (the best thing about studying in Bangor is…)
    • "Y rheswm 'nes i ddewis Bangor…" (the reason I chose Bangor), &c.
  • Also, the English pronunciation used in the UK is not "bang-er", but "bang-ger": https://youtu.be/0adoOg0z9SE?t=44s
  • Interestingly, <ng> is usually just pronounced /ŋ/, without any /g/, in Welsh; but the name Bangor is an exception.
  • Verdict: The American pronunciation is actually closer to the original Welsh, given that the final vowel is basically the same (differing only by the American approximant 'r' vs. Welsh rolled 'r').
• Quote from the page: Yggdrasil is hard to pronounce anyway (the correct pronunciation is something like "Y'g-dra-sill", as if you were saying "yug" but without stressing the vowel sound).
  • According to the OED, it's "IG-dra-sill" in English. The Other Wiki lists something similar with an initial rounded vowel (IPA /y/) as the original Old Norse pronunciation. The example seems to be falsely claiming that something like /jəg.ˈdra.sɪl/ or, Njord help us, /jəg.ˈdra.sil/ (like in the English dub of Tales of Symphonia) is "the correct pronunciation", with no evidence given.
• Quote from the page: Latin doesn't have a long A sound (Technically, the way we pronounce "radius" is wrong too).
  • In English, the pronunciation of Latin went through the Great Vowel Shift and all that good stuff along with English itself over the centuries, as described on the Other Wiki. This is why the English word 'radius' is pronounced the way it is. That parenthetical in the quote is just false. And the sentence "Latin doesn't have a long A sound" can be interpreted in at least two ways, both of which are complete nonsense.
• Quote from the page: Stargate Atlantis was similarly inconsistent with the name "Daedalus". There are a number of acceptable pronunciations in Real Life for this name, but 'ded-a-lis' isn't one of them.
  • Yes, it is. Ever wonder how Stephen Dedalus got his name?

2. They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Loanword Phonology Edition.

• Quote from the page: Nearly all Japanese words that have been added to the English language are mispronounced. The most common offender is to use the wrong vowel sound for trailing "e"s. "Karate" ("ka-rah-teh") and "sake" ("sa-keh"), for example. Karaoke is one of the worst offenders; it should be "ka-rah-oh-keh." A good rule of thumb is to think of all "e"s as having an accent on them, especially if it's a trailing "e". "Karaté," "saké," "karaoké," etc.
  • People sit in chairs! The most egregious offenders are…Nah, this is not a bad thing, any more than gravity is bad. Languages have different phonological systems. Almost any time a language borrows words from another language, sounds will get shifted around.
• Quote from the page: The very name of Thor himself. Scandinavians pronounce his name as toor. Anglophones tend to pronounce him as "thorr".
  • So what? Hardly a reason for criticism. This example is made even worse by the fact that, if the citations in the OED are anything to go by, 'Thor' is inherited from Old English (i.e. borrowed from Old Norse already then, independently of the native OE 'Thunor').
• Quote from the page: Vincent van Gogh: IPA [fan χoχ]. The "g" and "gh" are exactly the same, a rough guttural. The "o" is short, like in "lot". The "a" in "van" sounds like the "a" in "dawn", only a bit shorter. […] Oh, and the "e" in "Vincent" is not a schwa, but sounds like the first "e" in "letter".
  • I mean, it's interesting to know things about how Dutch is pronounced by native Dutch speakers, but uvular fricatives (aka "rough gutturals") are simply not in the phonemic inventory of English. With "van go" and "van goff", we're talking about pronunciations that are commonly used by educated English speakers. Hardly Did Not Do The Research or anything of that sort. And the "Vincent" nitpicking is literally just complaining about people's accents.
• Quote from the page: Honda. Most people say "Hon-duh" when, since it's a Japanese company with a Japanese name, it's more like "Hohn-Dah"
  • Complaining About Accents You Don't Like again.
• Quote from the page: In Latin, there is no soft C sound, all Cs are read like Ks. Cue every Latin student ever pronouncing cinnis (ash) as Sin-us, not Kin-is.
  • As the reply to the above example points out, there is not One True Way to pronounce Latin. In the US in the 20th-21st century, we tend to be taught to pronounce Latin according to a reconstruction of Classical Latin pronunciation. But when we sing Latin in a choir, it's the "Church Latin" pronunciation (which is different from what you'd hear from a German choir, for instance); finally, we pronounce most of the Latinate English words in our vocabulary according to the "Latin with English phonology" rules described in the link above in the 'radius' example. This last also holds for most proper names: when was the last time you heard someone talking about Marcus Tullius "Kickero" in English?

3. Completely useless observations.

• Quote from the page: Almonds. The L was originally silent and thus the word pronounced "ah-munds."
  • Language changes over time, much like how people sit in chairs.
• Quote from the page: Anytime the word "Shaman" appears. Someone is going to argue whether the first syllables has a long or soft "A". The terrible part? Both are technically correct.
  • And anytime the word "tomato" occurs, someone is going to argue over whether it's "to-MAY-to" or "to-MAH-to". "And both are technically correct!" You could say this about literally any word that differs among languages, dialects, or accents. Envelope…schedule…car…caramel…
• Quote from the page: Daithi De Nogla's name is actually pronounced "DA-hee day NO-glah". The fact that his Irish accent is slightly unusual, especially for other Irish people, makes it a little more confusing.
  • Daithi De Nogla is also a Let's Player who introduces himself in his videos, making it pretty clear how to pronounce his name. This example basically amounts to "Irish orthography sure is weird".

In its current state, the page reads mostly like a bunch of people smugly trying to one-up each other (in Thread Mode) by declaring various things to be "wrong" pronunciations — sometimes in error. So editing is definitely needed, but I want to be sure of what's really supposed to be there before literally decimating the article.

The description as I interpret it — "There is (real or potential, legitimate or illegitimate) disagreement about how something is pronounced" — just seems like "People Sit On Chairs in Real Life". "People pronounce things differently because different languages, or different dialects of the same language, have different phonology" is definitely People Sit On Chairs. (This Troper pronounces her own name differently, depending on what language she's speaking at the time. This is a normal part of how the world works. What a "correct" pronunciation of something is can depend on context.)

There are (at least) three potentially interesting types of example that are not this, though:

1) Actors/voice actors/audiobook readers within the same work don't all agree on how to pronounce something. Or a single person pronounces something in multiple ways over the course of the same work. (Sort of like an Inconsistent Dub, but with pronunciation rather than wording.)

2) The pronunciation confusion is In-Universe, or de-nonfictionalized, or something of that sort. (I'm thinking of the "Hermione" pronunciation guide in the text of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, for instance.)

3) Not as interesting, but seems to be something that the trope is actually about: George R. R. Martin writes a series with characters named things like "Cersei" and "Daenerys", and doesn't give a pronunciation guide.

I've looked at wicks as well; my general impression is that the wicks aren't as bad as the examples on the page itself. One thing I noticed, though, is a tendency for "weird" or "hard to pronounce" names (from an Eaglelander perspective) being potholed to No Pronunciation Guide…that gets old fast.

If it were my decision, I'd just remove all the real-life examples (including the ones about existing names from history or mythology being used in fictional works and then getting mispronounced or "mispronounced" by fans), and leave the three sorts of examples I listed above. But I'd be interested to see what other people think.

Another can of worms: overlap between this trope and It Is Pronounced Tropay (which often gets misused as "people in Real Life pronounce this name wrong sometimes"). But maybe that's a question for another time, or another topic. (I can't say I'm not working on a TRS post for that one too…)

And now, the randomly-sampled wicks. (I did this a while ago, while the Trope Repair Shop was locked, so there may have been edits since.)

OK examples:

• Tropes N to Z
  The first two audio books pronounce Marcone with a long 'e' at the end […] From that point on, Marcone has been pronounced as simply: Mar-CONE.
• Kirby: 3 examples.
  • Dedede:
    Is it "dee-dee-dee" or "day-day-day"? Seems to depend mostly on region. […] It seems both are correct
  • Kine (confusing romanisation, it looks like):
    His name is pronounced as "KAI-n", rhyming with the English word "shine", rather than "Kee-neh."
  • Zero Two:
    The official pronunciation of the name of 0^2 is "Zero Two", although that hasn't stopped people from pronouncing it as "Zero-Squared", "Oh-Two", "Oh-Squared", and even Oxygen (which is O_2).
• Caddicarus: A reviewer expresses confusion about how to pronounce the names in the game Klonoa.
  "Is it Klonoa? Klone-ah? Klon-ow? Klon-oooooooooaaaaaaah?"
• Fire Emblem Akaneia: Inconsistent pronunciation in a dub.
  The English dub of the OVA has some rather strange pronunciations of some of the location names — its handling of pronouncing "Durhua" (aka Dolhr) is particularly prone to inconsistency.
• Godzilla vs. Hedorah: something of a Dub Name Change?
  The characters in the Titan Productions dub (the 1972 U.S. theatrical release) insist on pronouncing Hedorah as Hee-drah. It gets confusing after a while.
• A Song of Ice and Fire - Court of Daenerys I: Yup, there's no pronunciation guide for 'Daenerys'.
  Word of God is that people should be allowed to interpret names however they want. Having said that, here is an interview with GRRM calling her "den-air-iss tar-gair-ee-yen". (Curiously, the one time we hear her nickname, it's pronounced "Danny".) Drogo, when learning the Common Tongue of Westeros, calls her "Dan Ares".
• Air Gear: Classical Latin purism, although in this case it seems to be at least partially on the part of the translators.
  Nike. While his name is a clear and obvious reference to the Greek Goddess of Victory, and his translated name is spelled the same way as her name, it isn't pronounced "N-eye-kee." It's pronounced "Nee-kay," the way the romanji would typically be read. Apparently, this confusion was so common that the official translations felt the need to include a note telling the reader the correct pronunciation.
• Ninjago
  Is it pronounced Ninja Go or Nin JA Hgo? The designer videos tend to use the latter pronunciation, while every significant Title Drop uses the former. The animations, however, use both: Ninja Go before spinning, an ninJAHgo when referring to the location.
• Tropes H to N: Reviewer expressing confusion/amusement over a name.
  Tone Lōc; causing an Overly Long Gag in the Bebe's Kids review.

Complaining or silly examples:

• Dara Ó Briain: A phonetic transcription of his name is potholed to the trope. (Gee, fellow Eaglelanders, isn't Irish orthography weird!)
  Dara Ó Briain (Pronounced Oh Bree-Ann) is an Irish stand up comedian…
  • (You want a "pronunciation guide" for the name of noted comedian Dara Ó Briain? How about finding a video of his act where someone introduces him? The first Youtube result for "Dara Ó Briain" has this property, you say?)
• Fairy Tail: Pothole on 'Erza' in order to Complain About Anglicized Pronunciations You Don't Like.
  Erza^note Or "Ur-za" as Funimation calls her …
• Shadow Man (silly pothole)
  Letters 2 Numbers: 2econd Coming. Have fun figuring out how to say that.
• The Aether: Two paragraphs on whether the title is supposed to be pronounced like the English word "aether" or not. The answer given: yeah, that's one option at least!
  No one can yet quite agree on how to pronounce "Aether". Some pronounce it to rhyme with "Nether" (and "feather", "heather", "leather", "tether", "weather", "whether", etc.), which has since been Jossed as an incorrect pronunciation. Some pronounce it identically to the existing English word "ether" (which derives from the mythological "aether"). And some pronounce it "ay-ther". Even online people close to the Aether Collaboration seem to inconsistently pronounce it either "ee-ther" or "ay-ther".
  Word of God: Kingbdogz has stated that "ee-ther" is the most correct pronunciation, but that he himself tends to say "ay-ther". ...which seems to imply both pronunciations are accepted.
• Metal Fight Beyblade: To someone who hasn't seen the show, this entry just looks like Complaining About Anglicized Pronunciations You Don't Like.
  The english dub is riddled with this. When watching, it becomes apparent that the voice recording staff didn't listen to the original japanese language track, as throughout the series, many names are quite poorly mispronouced.
• Pokémon Stadium: Anglicization of a Japanese name.
  "OH! It's Niddorun Male!"
• Ninja Gaiden: Anglicization of Japanese names.
  A lot of people tend to mispronounce the title as "Ninja Gay Den" (rather than "Ninja Guy Den").
• Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li: Anglicization of Japanese names.
  When Gen talks about Ryu, he mispronounces his name as "Rai-yu". Yes, a movie released in friggin' 2009 is pronouncing Ryu as "Rai-yu".
  A little less common is Bison's "Shadowlau", right after the caption reading "Shadowloo Headquarters". And even then, both are wrong.
• Stock Dinosaurs (True Dinosaurs): In Jurassic Park…
  [Parasaurolophus] is never named. One character does make an attempt, but gives up fairly quickly.
  • ("Parasaurolophus" is an English word, so "no pronunciation guide" can't possibly be true.)
• The Merlin Trilogy: Zero-context example.
• The Slayer Chronicles: Another zero-context example. Or at least, like, an epsilon-context example.
  No Pronunciation Guide: Sirus and Zy.

Unclear examples:

• Children of Bodom: It's hard to figure out what exactly the entry is talking about. Possibly has to do with "Bodom" being a Swedish name? A pronunciation difference between Finland Swedish and other dialects of Swedish? But it specifically has to do with Espoo, as opposed to elsewhere in Finland?
  No Pronunciation Guide: The name is a shibboleth. An Espoo native would pronounce it "boo-dum", while everyone else will pronounce it "bow-dom" or "boddom".
• Mobile Suit Gundam MS IGLOO: There's apparently a character named Oliver May: /maɪ/, not /meɪ/.
  Oliver May's last name is pronounced like Mai Shiranui, not like Brian May.
  • (The entry doesn't say whether the confusion is in-universe or not. If it is, the entry should say so. If it's not…it's an anime, so isn't the audio enough of a pronunciation guide?)
• PewDiePie: There's a character named "Mr. Chair"…
  No Pronunciation Guide: For some reason, Pewdie tends to pronounce "chair" as "Cher", as in the singer.
  • (This seems more like a humorous "mis"pronunciation, or perhaps an instance of It Is Pronounced Tropay.)
• The Goodies: A pair of In-Universe examples, both involving ordinary English words that are pronounced differently across different English dialects.
  "Bunfight at the OK Tea Room" has an Overly Long Gag about the pronunciation of the word "scone". The joke is that both the long-O and short-O pronunciations are correct, and it's slightly region-dependent which one is favoured.
  In "The Clown Virus" when they're meeting with an American general:

  General: Poison gas!? This is not poison gas, this is...tomayto soup!
  Goodies: (incredulous) Tomato soup!?
  General: Yes, tomayto soup! (points to the label)
  Bill: Oh, tomato soup...
  • (I think these ones are both You Say Tomato.)

As I said before, though, in general the page itself is worse than the wicks (except for the potholing phenomenon).

Very well laid out OP. This page certainly needs help.

Just took a look at the page, and... Yikes. It has serious natter/Thread Mode issues. As for the wicks, most of the questionable ones do indeed fit elsewhere.

Yeah, so the question is what really belongs there. A Thread Modectomy is a start, but the definition of the trope isn't terribly clear. As described, it sounds like a purely real-life phenomenon.

I think that while the second and third variants (In-Universe and plainly written with No Pronunciation Guide respectively) might be okay, actors not agreeing on how to pronounce something seems like a different but related trope to me. It could be the same trope, but it could also simply be the actor (or by extension, character) not being able to or not used to pronouncing it properly. There are also cases where multiple ways of saying it is actually okay (of which there are plenty IRL, just look at British vs American English).

Just for the sake of stating it, any way of explicitly calling the trope out counts as In-Universe or Playing with a Trope, so those are fine.

edited 19th Jan '16 11:28:50 AM by AnotherDuck

I was visiting this page to check on an edit I'd made (which seems to have been undone) and... oh my goodness, this is awful! My first thought on reading OP was to make this No Real Life Examples, Please!, since that's where the biggest problems seem to be. Then I realized people will probably sneak them in anyway (see: Delusions of Eloquence). And then I looked back at the trope description and... this trope seems to be complete bait for exactly the problems we're seeing. It's probably impossible to salvage this trope in the form it's in. Your third type of potential good example looks to me like People Sit on Chairs, and the first two could go to YKTTW as a totally new trope.

Clock expired; locking up.