How to say: Pardubice
| 11:14 UK time, Friday, 28 July 2006
A guide to words and names in the news, from Catherine Sangster of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Pronunciation Unit.
"Today's pronunciation is Pardubice, the Czech town where a during a chess tournament. Czech is invariably stressed on the first syllable, and the pronunciation is PAR-doo-bits-uh."
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Comments
I doubt I'll ever use that word, but the knowledge that "Czech is invariably stressed on the first syllable" will prove most useful when I next order a fine imported beer.
If the ´óÏó´«Ã½ has a whole unit dedicated to pronunciation, why oh why can none of your presenters pronounce Maryland or Houston (as in Whitney and Texas) correctly? Mary-land and Whooston are simply wrong!
I just discovered today that this blog exists. I am delighted to discover that the ´óÏó´«Ã½ have a pronunciation unit, and that the unit has a blog. And that you, Catherine, are a member of the unit. I have in fact met you (Merton 1997) and I'm really pleased to discover that you have a job doing something this cool and this directly connected to linguistics. I love the 21st century.