I'd ring that

Can't you just type a word into merriam webster and get an audio pronouciation?

Typing requires thumbs; something only primates have.
...another thing that (some) primates have is an island where rich people go to molest children.
Some of these primates are greedy and/or terrible primates, and they don't want you to look up any connection between a primate named Trump and a primate named Epstein (spoiler alert, those primates rape underaged primates and brag about it to each other).
- Mate.. This post is about a funny meme about word pronunciation. There is no need to bring us politics here (or any other nation politics for that matter). There are other places you can go to to talk about it.
- Or..

The New York Public Library has Dial 917-ASK-NYPL (917-275-6975) to connect with librarians via phone Monday through Saturday from 10 AM to 6 PM. Available in English and español.

NYPL Amazing Service Offerings

In fact I would wager almost any library would work for this. Librarians are by and large the most helpful and I judgmental people I have ever met. Every single interaction I've ever had with them has been positive.

Chitin.

(kai-tin)

But isn't the whole point of that to avoid the "oh sweetie..."?

More to avoid the "oh sweetie" from people you know and care about.
Though I wonder how much you could trust the pronunciation if they outsourced the call center to an English-speaking third-world country like Alabama.

I speak spanish and one of the first cultural shocks I had was when I as a kid saw an episode of some sitcom (can't remember) and there where talks of a "spelling bee" a contest to see who could spell correctly, that was so alien to at the time because in spanish there are just a few words that are tricky, because they have some silent H or a P at the beginning but then I started to learn english and it all made sense.

"English: if you can spell our words we'll literally give you a fucking trophy and a scholarship"
In finnish it's the same and I've even had the same experience! We write almost completely phonetically so something like "spelling bee" is an insane thought. English writing system is basically abstract at this point and you just need to learn to pronounce each individual word lmao
- The "c" in Pacific Ocean is pronounced 3 different ways.
We have bees, and we also have really long, ancient words that no one uses or remembers like pulchritudinous, which means physical beauty or Myrmecophilous which is fond of ants.
Just the fact that we can have a whole contest around the idea, and that there's still room for words contestants haven't seen before, illustrates just how insane English is.
- English isn't really a language. It's at least three languages in a trench coat.
That's what happens when you mash several languages together. A lot of English terms have a Latin-derived and Germanic-derived word meaning the same thing.
- French spelling is a total shitshow too. what's their excuse? Spanish and Italian turned out normal.

It’s called a dictionary, and they’ve been doing it for literally years at this point.

You can live your life to the fullest even if you don't know phonetic alphabet
- You don't need to. The Free Dictionary has buttons on every word that speak the word in either US or UK English
- Can you, though? Can you really?
The pronunciation guide of a dictionary is pretty fuckin esoteric at this point.
I was educated in the 80s and they still didn't teach us how to pronounce words using the dictionary.
- Same with the 80s. My Gramma who was a school teacher in 1933 taught me out of a 100 yr old dictionary. In all the times I've moved, I've managed to hold onto that huge, leather-bound book.
- I rejected those lessons after they dropped this on my desk:
  /ə/
Still won't help if your locality uses a different pronunciation.
*literally hundreds of years
The American Phonetic Dic-tionary of the English Language, edited by Dan S. Smalley, Cincinnati, 1855, has a unique interest. The oldest English dictionary to be printed in a "phonetic" alphabet
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/00335634209380758?needAccess=true
oh man, asking a kid in this era to look something up in the dictionary is quite the challenge.
In this book? why? why not just look it up online?
BECAUSE GODDAMNIT REASONS AND SHIT
- The dictionary is now online and often includes an audio recording of the word or phrase of interest. Online is not always better than physical, but this is one of the cases where it is likely better. If you're suggesting a less convenient method of doing something, it makes sense to request a reason. In this case I have to agree with the kids.

I had the misfortune of pronouncing rapping as raping in front of the class when I was 13

"My favorite rapper is Puff Daddy"
Like the post I saw once where a woman wrote she raped her little sister to help her sleep (with a picture of a baby wrapped in a blanket).

Chitin.

I pronounced Tagalog tag-uh-log for years until I met my Filipino wife. Tuh-gah-log.

Yeah, that's my favorite girl scout cookie!

My buddy says "chasm" with a soft ch. We've tried to correct him. He doesn't hear us. He also pronounces "tome" like "tomb".

We play DnD together if anyone was wondering why these words would come up with any regularity.

PTSD flashback to my ESL little self always mispronouncing choir after they told me to join to practice my English.
- Another funny story! An ex of mine was an exchange student in Germany (from Canada) when she was a high schooler, and she attended a children's choir concert where they sang "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off", and in the line "you say tomato, I say tomato", they pronounced "tomato" the same way each time.
I've heard "chasm" pronounced as both "chaz-um" and "kaz-um"
- The correct one is "kaz-um," just like "chaos" isn't "chay-oss."
I total believe you're not in a weird magic cult winks
Does he say "chaos" with a soft "ch" as well?
He also pronounces “tome” like “tomb”
My roommate in college did that. Drove me nuts, but the worst was that he rhymed "epitome" with "tome."
- Social studies teacher in high school dinged me 5 points for pronouncing epitome as epi-tome. Ended up with 95/100 but it's the principle of the matter.
- No, his chaos is thankfully chaos. It would be kind of fitting if it weren't, though.
"kazum" is acceptable in my book. "Toom" is strange for a book though.

Just use the Free Dictionary
Press the little buttons on top:

Ahh, simplified and correct.

Neesh? Nitch?

First one. It's a borrowed word so pretend you're French

Then can we force SciFi audiobook narrators to use it?

Ray Porter, I love you to fucking death, but you kill me sometimes....

I loved The Expanse, and Jefferson Mays is amazing
But "jimbals" drove me crazy
For Ray Porter, his inability to pronounce "Archimedes" was bad enough they made him go back and re-record a book.
- Oh god yes the jimbles on Mays, I had forgotten about that, every time he would say that my brain would go "the what?" It would suck me right out of immersion every damn time.

Benefit of living in Australia is that every word is pronounced wrong so it doesn't matter how you say it.

Can't even pronounce our second largest city right lol. Melbourne became Melbin

Does that mean the game on PS4 is Bloodbin in Australia?
- No because that would be logically consistent

Dearest creature in creation Studying English pronunciation, I will teach you in my verse Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

I will keep you, Susy, busy, Make your head with heat grow dizzy; Tear in eye, your dress you'll tear; Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.

Pray, console your loving poet, Make my coat look new, dear, sew it! Just compare heart, hear and heard, Dies and diet, lord and word.

Sword and sward, retain and Britain (Mind the latter how it's written). Made has not the sound of bade, Say-said, pay-paid, laid but plaid.

Now I surely will not plague you With such words as vague and ague, But be careful how you speak, Say: gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak ,

Previous, precious, fuchsia, via Recipe, pipe, studding-sail, choir; Woven, oven, how and low, Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.

Say, expecting fraud and trickery: Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore, Branch, ranch, measles, topsails, aisles, Missiles, similes, reviles.

Wholly, holly, signal, signing, Same, examining, but mining, Scholar, vicar, and cigar, Solar, mica, war and far.

From "desire": desirable-admirable from "admire", Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier, Topsham, brougham, renown, but known, Knowledge, done, lone, gone, none, tone,

One, anemone, Balmoral, Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel. Gertrude, German, wind and wind, Beau, kind, kindred, queue, mankind,

Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather, Reading, Reading, heathen, heather. This phonetic labyrinth Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.

Have you ever yet endeavoured To pronounce revered and severed, Demon, lemon, ghoul, foul, soul, Peter, petrol and patrol?

Billet does not end like ballet; Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet. Blood and flood are not like food, Nor is mould like should and would.

Banquet is not nearly parquet, Which exactly rhymes with khaki. Discount, viscount, load and broad, Toward, to forward, to reward,

Ricocheted and crocheting, croquet? Right! Your pronunciation's OK. Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve, Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Is your r correct in higher? Keats asserts it rhymes Thalia. Hugh, but hug, and hood, but hoot, Buoyant, minute, but minute.

Say abscission with precision, Now: position and transition; Would it tally with my rhyme If I mentioned paradigm?

Twopence, threepence, tease are easy, But cease, crease, grease and greasy? Cornice, nice, valise, revise, Rabies, but lullabies.

Of such puzzling words as nauseous, Rhyming well with cautious, tortious, You'll envelop lists, I hope, In a linen envelope.

Would you like some more? You'll have it! Affidavit, David, davit. To abjure, to perjure. Sheik Does not sound like Czech but ache.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven, Rachel, loch, moustache, eleven. We say hallowed, but allowed, People, leopard, towed but vowed.

Mark the difference, moreover, Between mover, plover, Dover. Leeches, breeches, wise, precise, Chalice, but police and lice,

Camel, constable, unstable, Principle, disciple, label. Petal, penal, and canal, Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal,

Suit, suite, ruin. Circuit, conduit Rhyme with "shirk it" and "beyond it", But it is not hard to tell Why it's pall, mall, but Pall Mall.

Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron, Timber, climber, bullion, lion, Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair, Senator, spectator, mayor,

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour Has the a of drachm and hammer. Pussy, hussy and possess, Desert, but desert, address.

Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants Hoist in lieu of flags left pennants. Courier, courtier, tomb, bomb, comb, Cow, but Cowper, some and home.

"Solder, soldier! Blood is thicker", Quoth he, "than liqueur or liquor", Making, it is sad but true, In bravado, much ado.

Stranger does not rhyme with anger, Neither does devour with clangour. Pilot, pivot, gaunt, but aunt, Font, front, wont, want, grand and grant.

Arsenic, specific, scenic, Relic, rhetoric, hygienic. Gooseberry, goose, and close, but close, Paradise, rise, rose, and dose.

Say inveigh, neigh, but inveigle, Make the latter rhyme with eagle. Mind! Meandering but mean, Valentine and magazine.

And I bet you, dear, a penny, You say mani-(fold) like many, Which is wrong. Say rapier, pier, Tier (one who ties), but tier.

Arch, archangel; pray, does erring Rhyme with herring or with stirring? Prison, bison, treasure trove, Treason, hover, cover, cove,

Perseverance, severance. Ribald Rhymes (but piebald doesn't) with nibbled. Phaeton, paean, gnat, ghat, gnaw, Lien, psychic, shone, bone, pshaw.

Don't be down, my own, but rough it, And distinguish buffet, buffet; Brood, stood, roof, rook, school, wool, boon, Worcester, Boleyn, to impugn.

Say in sounds correct and sterling Hearse, hear, hearken, year and yearling. Evil, devil, mezzotint, Mind the z! (A gentle hint.)

Now you need not pay attention To such sounds as I don't mention, Sounds like pores, pause, pours and paws, Rhyming with the pronoun yours;

Nor are proper names included, Though I often heard, as you did, Funny rhymes to unicorn, Yes, you know them, Vaughan and Strachan.

No, my maiden, coy and comely, I don't want to speak of Cholmondeley. No. Yet Froude compared with proud Is no better than McLeod.

But mind trivial and vial, Tripod, menial, denial, Troll and trolley, realm and ream, Schedule, mischief, schism, and scheme.

Argil, gill, Argyll, gill. Surely May be made to rhyme with Raleigh, But you're not supposed to say Piquet rhymes with sobriquet.

Had this invalid invalid Worthless documents? How pallid, How uncouth he, couchant, looked, When for Portsmouth I had booked!

Zeus, Thebes, Thales, Aphrodite, Paramour, enamoured, flighty, Episodes, antipodes, Acquiesce, and obsequies.

Please don't monkey with the geyser, Don't peel 'taters with my razor, Rather say in accents pure: Nature, stature and mature.

Pious, impious, limb, climb, glumly, Worsted, worsted, crumbly, dumbly, Conquer, conquest, vase, phase, fan, Wan, sedan and artisan.

The th will surely trouble you More than r, ch or w. Say then these phonetic gems: Thomas, thyme, Theresa, Thames.

Thompson, Chatham, Waltham, Streatham, There are more but I forget 'em- Wait! I've got it: Anthony, Lighten your anxiety.

The archaic word albeit Does not rhyme with eight-you see it; With and forthwith, one has voice, One has not, you make your choice.

Shoes, goes, does *. Now first say: finger; Then say: singer, ginger, linger. Real, zeal, mauve, gauze and gauge, Marriage, foliage, mirage, age,

Hero, heron, query, very, Parry, tarry fury, bury, Dost, lost, post, and doth, cloth, loth, Job, Job, blossom, bosom, oath.

Faugh, oppugnant, keen oppugners, Bowing, bowing, banjo-tuners Holm you know, but noes, canoes, Puisne, truism, use, to use?

Though the difference seems little, We say actual, but victual, Seat, sweat, chaste, caste, Leigh, eight, height, Put, nut, granite, and unite.

Reefer does not rhyme with deafer, Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer. Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late, Hint, pint, senate, but sedate.

Gaelic, Arabic, pacific, Science, conscience, scientific; Tour, but our, dour, succour, four, Gas, alas, and Arkansas.

Say manoeuvre, yacht and vomit, Next omit, which differs from it Bona fide, alibi Gyrate, dowry and awry.

Sea, idea, guinea, area, Psalm, Maria, but malaria. Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean, Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian, Dandelion with battalion, Rally with ally; yea, ye, Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay!

Say aver, but ever, fever, Neither, leisure, skein, receiver. Never guess-it is not safe, We say calves, valves, half, but Ralf.

Starry, granary, canary, Crevice, but device, and eyrie, Face, but preface, then grimace, Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.

Bass, large, target, gin, give, verging, Ought, oust, joust, and scour, but scourging; Ear, but earn; and ere and tear Do not rhyme with here but heir.

Mind the o of off and often Which may be pronounced as orphan, With the sound of saw and sauce; Also soft, lost, cloth and cross.

Pudding, puddle, putting. Putting? Yes: at golf it rhymes with shutting. Respite, spite, consent, resent. Liable, but Parliament.

Seven is right, but so is even, Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen, Monkey, donkey, clerk and jerk, Asp, grasp, wasp, demesne, cork, work.

A of valour, vapid vapour, S of news (compare newspaper), G of gibbet, gibbon, gist, I of antichrist and grist,

Differ like diverse and divers, Rivers, strivers, shivers, fivers. Once, but nonce, toll, doll, but roll, Polish, Polish, poll and poll.

Pronunciation-think of Psyche!- Is a paling, stout and spiky. Won't it make you lose your wits Writing groats and saying "grits"?

It's a dark abyss or tunnel Strewn with stones like rowlock, gunwale, Islington, and Isle of Wight, Housewife, verdict and indict.

Don't you think so, reader, rather, Saying lather, bather, father? Finally, which rhymes with enough, Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough??

Hiccough has the sound of sup... My advice is: GIVE IT UP!

Gerard Nolst Trenité - The Chaos (1922)

I've looked it up a bunch of times and I still don't know if potable is "POTE-ah-bull" or "POT-ah-bull"

Potent Potables -- from (SNL's) Celebrity Jeopardy.
The first one, as it comes from the Latin "potare," "to drink." Sure, we could use "drinkable" instead, but too many people would understand how to say it and what it meant.
what about pote-ah-bull
- That is what I was going for with my first option, I am just bad at phonics
I say it the first way. I'll fight anyone who says otherwise.
it's /ˈpoːdəbl/ in American English anyway.

Let me drop this on fleek resource: www.forvo.com The Pronunciation Dictionary. Longtime user. Ya just search the word, and get results from people all over the world saying it in their native tongue with country specified. It's great. Hearing Americans say Gouda (a Dutch town famous for the cheese) is like taking a cheese grater to my balls. No, it is not "Goo-dah" of you. Repent!

When I check the dictionary, it says in the US it's pronounced goo-dah.
- It is, because we butchered it. Like how Lohss On-heh-lace is pronounced "Loss An-juh-less."
- https://forvo.com/search/Gouda/
Well ... what is it then? If you don't tell me I'm gonna keep pronouncing it with my Minnesotan accent!
- According to the website (and Wikipedia) it's supposed to sound more like "How-da" with the "how" sounding like you're gearing up to spit on someone. And then other-non English speaking countries do pronounce the g very distinctly, but they still relatively follow the vowel pronunciation and sound like "Go-dah" as in "Go dad" (but if dad changed to dah)
  Basically Americans are the only ones who say Gouda like "Goo-dah"
  In the interest of not being bullied by my friends, I'm gonna continue to say it the American way because I don't wanna be bullied. My Filipino friends still make fun of how I said "Pancit" incorrectly ONE TIME.
- https://forvo.com/search/Gouda/
- https://forvo.com/search/Gouda/
I am American and I said "Gowda".
That right?
- SAY IT RIGHT DUTCHIE
- https://forvo.com/search/Gouda/

No I will pronounce Latin with guterization so bad it'd make a Catholic priest have an aneurysm. Worst part is it actually sounds close to classical Latin or so I've been told.

Conversely, just fucking go for it. Who even cares? Have a laugh about it!

I think mispronouncing weird words you've worked into your vocab is a nice middle ground between sounding insufferable and approachable. Yes I used ameliorate but I also mangled the hell out of it, so how smart could I really be?

how did you say it? Amelly-or-ate?
- A-mealio-rate
- Heh, ameliorate was a better example word. The real one that always comes to mind for me is debacle. I always read it as de-buckle (like unbuckling a belt) in my head until I heard someone on the news say it once. "Lol, that anchor pronounced debacle wrong ............ wait ..."

When we were teenagers, my sister had obviously read the phrase "faux pas" and used it (correctly) in a sentence but pronouncing it "fox pass".

It was perfect. Like a Mike Myers "what the french call.... I don't know what".

I heard that in the US, every business needs to have a publicly listed phone number, not to mention the number of times I see "TEXT ... TO ..." or "CALL ..." displayed more prominently than the URL on ads. Why do they still do so much over the phone?

IF you're thinking that's a legal thing, it is not. In my experience it's the opposite. Companies obscure their phone number because taking calls costs more than dealing with a chat or email.
- I know, and phone calls are more annoying for neurodivergent people like me, although I get the reverse is true for old people. I had a job that featured looking up data and for any given active company with employees in Czechia, there is over 90% chance you get an address you can visit (they are legally required to list one but there are obfuscation services), about 70% for some kind of maintained web presence outside the legal registry, and some 50% for a working phone number. The latter two are roughly reversed for one-person establishments.
  What happened is that I heard a Czechoslovak emmigrant to the US rambling while visiting his homeland that "phone books are useless in Czechoslo- uh - Czechia because companies aren't required by the Constitution [sic] to keep their data updated there".

English needs a spelling reform badly. Like the whole point of writing is to put speech in writing. It makes no sense to have spelling be this detached from pronunciation.

busy should be bizy for example

English has the problem of taking words literally from other languages including the pronunciation.
Kindergarden - > German. The I gets pronounced differently.
Tibia - > Latin. Fuck who knows how it is pronounced, just do what you want.
Bureaucracy - > French. Yeah well the French hate people who want to learn their language, I guess. Nothing is written like it is pronounced
- You call French inconsistent, I call you ignorant of its rules. They are many, they are complex, they don't make sense (but, surprisingly, languages don't ever make sense, they just are), but are for the most part consistent. Especially compared to English.
  In French, "eau" is pronounced like "o". It's dumb. But it's always true. Meanwhile, the "i" in "alive" and "live" are pronounced differently for no good reason.
- Kindergarden - > German. The I gets pronounced differently.
  Tinder.
- Kindergarden
  Validating your point: https://grammarhow.com/kindergarten-or-kindergarden/
This is a non-trivial task, and not simply because people will refuse to change their habits as they always do.
You say that "busy" should be "bizy", but are you sure about that? If we decide that Y should always have an "ee" sound, what do you do with words that start with Y? Or are we going to make it the rule that it always has a Y sound at the beginning of a word and an ee sound at the end? What about a word like "ripe"? That's a different-sounding I than the one you have in "bizy", so would that be "ryp"? In that case, you have to have 3 pronunciations for Y: one each for when it occurs at the beginning, ending, and inside a word.
Over time, that is what normally happens to language (even French, yeah looking at you Gauls).
But, English and especially North American English is so predominate in the world, that may stop its otherwise natural development.
/not a linguist just friends with some.
- English just needs a new orthography. Languages change in many ways, and phonetic drift is natural, it's just that there hasn't been a spelling reform to accommodate them, and at this point it's gotten out of hand.
- Even French? a lot of the horribly spelled words in English are their fault!
Nah, we just need to go back to the old pronunciation.*
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oFX1nbD3dV0
"Knight" used to be pronounced as it's spelt. "Outside" used to said like oot-si-deh.
*I am actually just kidding about that first part, but I do find it fascinating how much the spoken word has moved away from the originally phonetic spelling.

The news department in our national public television has such a service. They have a list of people they can call whenever needed. If e.g. a disaster happens in Eiuýrzbüicuzboßébeor city, they call a native speaker of that country to learn the correct pronunciation of the place or name for the news.

i pronounced "Ascendancy" with a dance in the middle and "Achievement" with a sound like a hissing cat instead of "chief".

I know better now, but i caused some laughs.

For me, this was Ganymede.

ganny meade? gahny meade? Don't hold out on us!
- I pronounced it gan-ih-midee like a Greek person's name. It's supposed to be gani meed
Someone didn't watch The Expanse.
- I learned how to pronounce Nguyen from that show.
- I read it though

The first time I read the word "undetermined" was in Percy Jackson. I assumed it had some greek pronounciation to it. At some point I must have had to read it out loud in front of the class.

I pronounced it un-debtor-mind

Traumatic moment for preteen me

Did the same with misshapen. miss happen. My genius IQ gf was laughing her ass off!
"I look miss happen in that picture!"
"What?"

Or you can look up how to pronounce it. The IPA and often audio pronunciations aren't that hard to find, unless you speak a more obscure language

So many of the audio pronunciations are computer generated, I used to like IPA but then I stopped drinking so it doesn't really help any more.
- International phonetic alphabet :3.. though trying to pronounce some of the sounds in it does make you want the other kind of IPA lol
I just wouldn't think to look up a word I assumed I was pronouncing correctly. I'm pretty good at this reading thing, and so I apply the standards, but words like epitome and ethereal are just here to fuck with us.
- Tbf a call line wouldn't help you in that case either, which is the premise of this. You wouldn't call about words you assume you know
- I can't imagine "ethereal" being pronounced any other way than the correct one. "Etha-real?"

Well...im my country there actually is :D You can call them, they are very nice and for bonus points you can also ask them about any questions you have regarding grammar rules and how you would correctly use them in you specific context

Which country is this ?
"Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz"-land ?

Me listening to audiobooks, "he winded his way up the path". I always say winded like winding a spool of thread, but hear it told like deprived of air from the narrators...

surely it should be "wound" anyway?
- "Woond?"
  "No, Wownd!"
That doesn't sound correct. If you're talking about breath, I would say "He became winded on his way up the path" or something like that. If you're talking about traveling, I would say "He wound his way up the path."

Calliope

Hegemony

Vitiligo

These are a few of my recent ones.

/ˌkʌːlˈaɪɔpi/
/hɛdʒˈɛːmʌni/
/vɪtɪlˈaɪɡoʊ/? I think?
I kinda suck at IPA.
cal lie o pee? Think I got that one.
Haver never heard hegemony spoken aloud.
Jesus, I've been saying vih tag lio.
- Yeah youve got the first one.
  It's hedge em en ee. It's a weird one.
  I just had to re-look up the pronunciation for vitiligo and I've been so far off too. My pronunciation has been vit ill ih go. But it's vit ih LIE go ?
  Words are dumb, hahahaha
- hedge-uh-moe-knee?

This hotline is funded by Hermione Granger.

I love that she realized it and saved everyone in book four. It was hard to undo three books of incorrect pronunciation.
- Hermy-won Granger.

Insert me saying C-hash to a programmer friend and promptly being roasted for the rest of the evening.

Sharp is a pretty dumb name for that symbol imo
- You're not wrong, though I was a musician before a developer, so it always kind of made sense to me.
- Yes, it's obviously C-octothorp.

I mean, even if you're too lazy to pull out a dictionary, you can search online how to pronounce words.

Problem is, you sometimes don't know you need correction.

Candelabra

The CandelaBra^tm constantly emits a soft glow, so you can find it without turning on the lights.
How can it be read incorrectly? "Can-della-bra?"
- Candell-abra is how I was pronouncing it. Yes, I know it's the wrong way
Candle ahh brah

Better to corrected than let things get too awry.

Awry.
Awwww-reeeeeeeeeeee..........

It had the quality of being awr. It was awry.
- If that's not a real word I don't know what is

Someone was telling me about Hermy-own in Harry Potter, and it took me a minute to realize it was Hermione.

There are two main groups, those who learned their foundational language mainly orally, and those who mainly learned by reading. Those who were readers would read Hermy-own or Hermy-onn because that would match how other similar spellings are pronounced. I was an ambitious reader very early on, so my pronounciations tend to follow spelling rules rather than actual practice
- For what it's worth, her name is pronounced differently in different languages. Whereas it's "her-my-nee" in English, it's "Hermine" (long i + schwa-sound for the e at the end) in German and "Гермиона" (Germiona) in Russian
- Depends on if you had a Greek class with Persephone explained also
I knew a girl who was raised in a small town in the middle of nowhere, without TV or movies, but she read a lot. She had so many things like that. Yosemite rhymed with hose-mite.
- I know Yosemite, from Yosemite Sam cartoons :)
- My family has Swedish relatives that pronounced it "Yohss-meet."
Hermy-one
- Hermi wan Kenerbi, yer me ernly herp!

I'm alexic. I can't even read words right the first time.

a service that could explain how it's pronounced, AND WHY - etymology and local vernacular - would be amazing

It's not hyperbole. Lithe communication is the epitome of communication.

The hyperbole is even bigger than the Superbowl.
I disagree with the word hyperbole. In speech, it comflicts with the namespace of -ly words and always sounds like an adverb, which derails my parsing. In writing, it conflits with the namespace of nouns like hole, pole, console, casserole, and letrozole. The only -ole word that I know that doesn't sound like this is guacamole, which doesn't sound like an adverb.
It's a word actively harmful to my understanding and should be stricken from the language. Just use hyperbolic.

Dictionary.com can do that, at least for English words. It's a little robotic but pretty good overall.

Scone.

What about words that everybody pronounces wrong, such as “nougat”? No, it’s not “new-git”, it’s “new-gah”. I even heard “nugget” from somebody not long ago.

if everybody's pronouncing it "wrong" nobody's pronouncing it wrong.
Who the hell pronounced nougat as new-git?
- American here: I've never heard it pronouned any other way.
- Milky Way candy bar commercials in the US?
- Americans. Probably Canadians, too. Although it's more "-gut" than "-git."
Apparently "nihilism" is meant to be pronounced like "nee-hilism", but if you say it like that, nobody knows what the fuck you're trying to say.
- What’s even the point of nihilism then
- If you want to change pronunciations to be closer to the original language the word derives from, you'd be changing most of English.
In French, sure. But unless you also talk about the national budzhay, you get that loan words can have different pronunciations.
I pronounce "pecan" pea-kahn unless it's a pea-can pie.

Could build this pretty easily with TTS and a dictionary.

There are youtube channels dedicated to that.

Maybe you can do with GPT voice. No?

I dunno. People correcting me on this stuff like an asshole just give away what fucking assholes they are. Its one of many mechanisms that helps me cut past the bullshit and realize who is absolute fucking scum by the way they treat others.

Edit: Interesting how so much privilege is in here assuming no assholes exist and things don't happen. Try being disabled in any way in high school or certain workplaces. I have experienced it numerous times, and I've witnessed it done to others.

Uhh I mean sometimes people can correct you on things to help you out. It might help you avoid an embarrassing situation down the line. Not everyone is out to be an asshole
- No no, let them live their life as a perpetual victim. They like it more. The idea of someone correcting out of kindness is foreign.
- I'm talking about the embarrassment. Maybe you haven't experienced people being mean about it, but some of us have.
  Rarely have I experienced people nicely correcting me or others. Its usually mean and involves laughing.
mispronounces a word
friendly person tells them how it's pronounced
"Its one of many mechanisms that helps me cut past the bullshit and realize who is absolute fucking scum "
I believe that the person correcting you isn't the one with a problematic mindset
- You presume they're a friendly person. You cannot comprehend being bullied or laughed at. Some people, myself included, and some I have witnessed get laughed at. Especially in certain workplaces.
  You simply assume nobody is a jerk, and so you cannot comprehend how meaningful those rude interactions are. Presumably because you experience some kind of privilege that others don't frequently attack how you're "different."
- I belive that the person correcting you isn't the one with a problematic mindset
  It’s spelled “believe” you absolute fucking scum.
You take offense at being corrected? Rather than take responsibility for making a mistake, you blame others for correcting you. That is something Trump does. I hope you grow out of this phase of your life, for your own sake.
- So explain to me how I'm supposed to take it when the supervisor laughs with my colleagues about it and then continues to bring it up at later meetings?
  "Omg you don't know how to pronounce that? That's is so funny. Hey Mark, guess what?"
  ....
  "Maybe yiu should get a refund for your degree..."
  And other fucking bullshit.
  I mean just one fucking example. I also personally know others who have experienced this.
  Enjoy your fucking privilege that nobody treats you as "different" in life. The rare occasions a person who actually has a shred of fucking decency corrected me, they did it nicely. Yes that happens. But the numerous others times where straight up fucking assholes make an embarrassing scene out of it ... somehow that's MY fault??
  Go fuck yourself.
Wow, sounds like you have some anger management issues. As someone who used to struggle with this (and still do, to an extent), I recommend therapy.
I appreciate being told the correct pronunciation of something, as long as it isn't done in a dickish way.
Also, *gives, *It's
- I was literally talking about the dickish way. Of course it's fine if someone is polite about it. Thats not my common experience, and I know others who also have experienced being bullied about it many times.
It's pronounced "azzhole". Yw.