7d ago

What thing about you is the most misunderstood?

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My dialect is confusing to some people. I was speaking to a Californian friend over Discord and I pronounce the word "Southern" in a way that she didn't realize what word I was saying until I clarified that to her, and she was like "yeah, that's definitely a different way of saying it". Another word that trips some people up is "decals"!
- I have a similar issue but it comes from a childhood of heavy reading but not understanding how dictionary pronunciations worked. So I ended up making a lot of mistakes on how certain words I read were pronounced. My parents were not well read people and they didn't use those kind of words in common speech. Color me shocked when I got to college and people would laugh at how I said words like "subsequently" which I would pronounce with emphasis on it being derived from "sequence" so I pronounced the second half of the word like the word sequence... which is not correct. I still mispronounce a lot of words like that regularly.
  
  I had the same thing for a while when I was little, so I can relate hehe. I remember getting a dictionary for my birthday because I had a phase where I was into books. No worries!
- Same. Not that I am particularly known for talkativeness (the term "selectively mute" is often used to describe me, which many here think is facade-ish because they don't realize is more associated with anxiety than autism), but I have Pacific heritage and it shows in what amounts to a Kiwi accent. People either...
  Think I'm Australian
  Think I'm Scottish
  Think I'm a Star Wars fangirl (because some people say they have only heard it from Jango Fett)
  Think I'm faking my voice and that this is why it sounds like it does
  Know it's a real voice and what dialect it is but think I've ever been to New Zealand
  And then they will proceed to ask me to pronounce silly words for them. ~~Apparently "should" is not pronounced like "shit".~~
  Based on someone's instruction, I once tried a kind of voiceover tech for fixing communication, and that only blew up in its own way, people thinking it felt "ungenuine".
  
  Aw yeah New Zealand! I often have trouble telling Australian and New Zealand accents apart though, they sound really similar to me. Love Australian and Kiwi accents!
- "Deckles" or "Dee-cals". What's your method? Dee-cals for me.
  
  "Deckles" and it rhymes with "speckles"!
  
  You forgot "day-Kals", stress on the second half. #ohCanada
- So I am from the northern US. I was speaking to someone from the southern US and they said the word "cement". I had to do a double take and think hard about what they were saying. To me, it sounded like she was saying "semen". I am basically a child and thought it was hilarious.
- How do you pronounce "southern?"
  
  South-ern, with the "sou" rhyming with "how"
  
  So, like, the normal way, then?
  
  Ew

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