To tell DH he is pronouncing DD’s name wrong.

[DuchessOfNorfolk]

DD is mainly known as a shortening of her name. Occasionally we call her the full versio. However I have noticed DH pronounces it in a different way to how I have ever heard it pronounced. I assumed there was just one pronunciation of it. I’m wondering if it would be reasonable to point it out? Or do I just live with it.

I say tann-ya. Tarnya sounds rather like a US pronunciation. Like 'Arna' instead of 'Anna'.

No. It isn't pronounced Tarnya here in the US, it's pronounced Tanya. Nor is Anna pronounced Arna. It's my understanding that putting "r" sounds where they don't belong is a British thing - see Paul McCartney calling his wife Lindur instead of Linda.

It's tann-ya in Australia. Sann-dra instead of sahn-dra, Alex-ann-dra instead of alex-ahn-dra. Dance instead of dahnce, plants instead of plahnts etc.

It’s only pronounced Arna in Frozen to make it sound Scandinavian...

I was going to post on this thread with my pronunciation of Ellun uh, or b-oo-k, l-oo-k and c-oo-k

But I've decided I'm just really glad that my name is one syllable and can only be said in one way

@RedDwarves not all Australians pronounce those names the same! I say them the same way as you, but my parents pronounce words differently based on where they grew up (QLD vs Vic). We lived for a while in SA then in Tas and noticed different pronunciations. Plenty of SAs say 'Alexahhhnder' - eg Alexander Downer - just like they say 'yohh gert' for yoghurt. And in country Vic they say 'castle' with the 'cas' A sound like the A in 'cat', as opposed to 'cahhh sul'.

No EastMidsMummy I said I didn’t like a particular aspect of the way some English people speak, not that they were not speaking properly. I am perfectly entitled to have an opinion, as are you. If you said that you disliked the Scottish accent that would be fine by me. However to accuse me of being stupid/unobservant is plain rude.

What's the English obsession of adding extra letters into words?

Tanya has no R in it so why Tarn-ya?
Sandra has no H so why Sahn-dra?

My Glaswegian cousins all pronounce Margaret as Mah-grit

I think it depends where abouts in Glasgow you're from. I say Mar-gret and my cousin says Mar-ga-ret - both from Glasgow with a mutual Auntie Margaret.

Tanya has no R in it so why Tarn-ya?

Not this again. Because of the cultures from which it derives. Tanya is the dim of Tatiana, and Russia and much of Eastern Europe don’t have a hard ‘aa’ sound. It’s pronounced more like Tuhnya which is rendered in English as Tarnya. It’s also a Hebrew name with a different etymology.

In actual fact that there are many a words in English that are pronounced as if they have a ‘r’ in them in the south.

Glass, class, grass, France etc. Compared to pants, have and shackle.

What's the English obsession of adding extra letters into words? Tanya has no R in it so why Tarn-ya? Sandra has no H so why Sahn-dra?

Of course there's no extra letter. Typing 'Tarnya' or 'Sahndra' is just a way of showing in print the difference between a long 'a' and a short 'a'. People with rhotic accents sometimes misunderstand that, because to them 'Tarnya' would have an actual 'r' sound, whereas to someone with my accent (SE England), bar, tar, barn etc sounds like a long 'a' with no 'r' sound.

*What's the English obsession of adding extra letters into words?

Tanya has no R in it so why Tarn-ya?
Sandra has no H so why Sahn-dra?*

Both are trying to express the long 'a' sound in Southern English. The English are taught 'ar' should be pronounced 'ah' which is why you see the letter 'r' used phonically in this way, the 'r' isn't pronounced, it's expressing a long 'a'. It's not like when they stick random 'r's into words like 'draw-ring' that you can hear shudder .

NobodyKnowsTiddlyPom

Your bold isn't working because you have text on different lines. If you do that then you need to put a star at the beginning and end of every new line

This thread has made me think about how the pronounciation of names sometimes changes over time.

Take the name Aaron. When I was a kid it was a very unusual name but was always pronounced Air-un. Over the last 20 or so years I've only heard it pronounced Arran (short vowel for the first syllable).

DuchessOfNorfolk She's not by any chance a Kate whose full name is Caitlin, is she? If she is, whichever of you calls her 'Kate Lynn' is BU and annoying and might as well be pronouncing Sean 'Ceeuhn'. Don't understand why, when there's a tradition in US of double-barrel forenames like Nancy Jo and Jim Bob, parents there have resorted to a spelling for Kate Lynn that isn't actually anything like 'Caitlin'.

How should Caitlin be pronounced then?

And I will hold my hand up as putting an r in drawing. But that’s my accent. Draw rhymes with floor.

Oh dear - I pronounce Caitlin Kate-Lynn. Is that wrong?

Dodgy old Max Branning in East Enders says "Tann-yer" which is probably why it sounds "rough". I say Taahn yuh. I am in Sussex.

I am also know three Eleanors who are pronounced with the "nor" sound at the end. Maybe it is regional? If a student told me their name was Ell-eh nuh I would write it as Elena.

Re Andrea. Sorry but I have a third way of pronouncing it! I put the emphasis on the first syllable so it's like Ann drey uh.

I also say glahse, grahse, etc

I said I didn’t like a particular aspect of the way some English people speak, not that they were not speaking properly.

When you talk in that patronising way about them “putting a random r” in certain speech forms, you start from the position that your accent is the norm and that their way is a deviation from the norm.

They’re not putting a random r in anything. Their accent doesn’t distinguish a rhotic r, so the sound they’re making is a simple connective. It has nothing to do with written language or individual letter sounds.

What's the English obsession of adding extra letters into words?

You can’t tell English pronunciation from English spelling. See brought, bough, enough, cough etc...

Long “a” and short “a” business is from Latin so blame the Romans lol

It's not "adding extra letters into words" though. Not everything is pronounced exactly as it's written. This is why children can be taught to read phonetically but some words or letter blends have to be taught separately.

Back to OP's dh saying "JESS-CA". I think it's fine as a pet name. If she's usually Jess then it's just a play on her name. I call my kids funny versions of their actual names sometimes in an affectionate way.
Presumably in an official setting (doctor's, school etc where they need to record the correct spelling) he would pronounce it "JESSICA".

I'm with OP on this one. Jess-ca is the wrong pronunciation!

It's not like when they stick random 'r's into words like 'draw-ring' that you can hear shudder *.

Watch out CountFosco , EastMidsMummy will be accusing you of being patronising and stupid any moment now.

In relation to the use of “r” to express a long “a”, I had an interesting example of this when I worked in Asia. I was going on business to Myanmar and trying to find out how it is pronounced. The name is of course transliterated from the Burmese language, but it was transliterated with non rhotic speakers (people who don’t pronounce the “r” in “car”, “door” etc) in mind. They inserted the “r” at the end to make non-rhotic English speakers pronounce the “a” directly before it as a long one (as people have explained above with “Tarnya”). However a rhotic speaker like me is tempted to pronounce it as short “a” plus rolled “r”.....totally wrong! For me, spelling it “Myanmar” would have got the right result.

(NB “Myanmar” vs Burma is a whole political can of worms that I am not venturing into in a thread about language...).

SimonBridges, bluebeck It's much like 'kahtLEEN', with the 't' sounding slightly like 'ch'.

One of the reasons the US pronunciation bothers me so is that I suspect it's come about through snobbery, in a sort of reverse Hyacinth. Jim Bob, Peggy Ellen, etc. are I think associated with rural US South, particularly hill country. Not unlikely that someone fancied the name 'Kate Lynn' then thought 'eeugh, people might think we're hillbillies if we name her that' and remembered an Irish name she'd read somewhere, with the name catching on for similar reasons.

Typo- should say “for me, spelling it ”Myanmah” would have got the right result.

Exactly, Jessie. It astonishes me how much argument the rhotic vs non-rhotic thing causes on MN (though admittedly I probably notice it more than most as I'm a linguist and therefore drawn to language-related threads!). Whether or not people have heard of the word 'rhotic', we have all surely heard plenty of English, Irish and Scottish accents and should therefore be pretty used to the more obvious differences between them!