to expect a musician to know how to pronounce Bowie?

[PLAYJAJADINGDONG]

Lighthearted disclaimer

Was sleepily making a brew this morning and heard Sharleen Spiteri on the work radio talking about someone called Barry (tbf it sounded more like Bawwy a la Elmer Funds which further confused me) and how much she admired him. I was stirring my tea thinking hmmm, Barry Gibb maybe.....Manilow, perhaps. I then heard her mention a specific song and realised she was saying Bow (down before royalty)-ie 😮.

It's Bow (as in row, row, row) ie!!! She's a guitar playing musician!

Unforgivable.

I am a musician, and not particularly dim, and until this thread, I had no idea how David Bowie pronounced his surname.

Who knows. I've heard sommeliers pronounce "Rioja" like "riokka"... Just because you're in a particular industry doesn't mean your pronunciation is going to be accurate!

@brokenkettle

Who knows. I've heard sommeliers pronounce "Rioja" like "riokka"... Just because you're in a particular industry doesn't mean your pronunciation is going to be accurate!

How could it be pronounced differently?!

The 'j' in Rioja is a back-of-the-throat sound, like the 'ch' in a Scottish loch, somewhere between a 'k' and a 'h' sound. It's not surprising lots of people (even sommeliers) don't get it right, as it's not really a sound that features in English.

To be fair, Bowie as an actual surname is pronounced bow-to-royalty Bowie. I don't think you can tell people off for pronouncing it wrong when it wasn't even his real name, but a made up stage name that he obviously couldn't pronounce himself.

As for rioja, that's nothing. Try pronouncing ribera del duero the proper Spanish way and watch your mouth make shapes it's never made before.

Not sure why ribera del duero should be particularly tricky, but then I do speak reasonably good Spanish!

Maybe im especially clever, but |I know who they mean with either pronounciation

I'm especially clever too!

I say Bow as in cow.

I've seen David Bowie say it's pronounced Bow as it Go. Bowie rhymes with Zoe.

If he says it's pronounced like that who is anyone else to tell him differently? It was his name? I'd be annoyed if other people were insistent my name was pronounced different to what I said it was.

Over the years (80s teen) I’ve heard it pronounced to rhyme with cow as many times as to rhyme with snow and we’ve all always known who it was either way.

Me - Even as a Londoner like Bowie himself I’ve been saying Bowie to rhyme it’s cow and it’s wrong!

@Pukkatea

As for rioja, that's nothing. Try pronouncing ribera del duero the proper Spanish way and watch your mouth make shapes it's never made before.

Easy peasy but I'm biased because I'm a Spanish speaker

@lazylinguist

The 'j' in Rioja is a back-of-the-throat sound, like the 'ch' in a Scottish loch, somewhere between a 'k' and a 'h' sound. It's not surprising lots of people (even sommeliers) don't get it right, as it's not really a sound that features in English.

Approximation to /h/ would be more acceptable than /k/, to my ears anyway!

Like others on here, I always assumed Zowie was pronounced as in bowing down, because most boys would not like being called Zoe.

Approximation to /h/ would be more acceptable than /k/, to my ears anyway!

I just found an article about it. Apparently U.S. English speakers tend towards an 'h' and English ones tend towards the 'k', whereas it really should be somewhere in the middle.

I’m American and had honestly never heard David Bowie’s name pronounced any way other than “Boh-ey”.

To the pp who said Americans pronounce it “Boo-ey”, there is a town in Maryland called Bowie and the locals pronounce it like that.

I agree that it's Bowie to rhyme with toe. I thought it was the other way (as in cow) until Band Aid - the B side of the single was all of them saying "this is so-and-so, Merry Christmas". I have a friend who spells her name Sara but pronounces it Sarah; her prerogative.

Americans pronounce Sara and Sarah exactly the same. I’m not sure why the presence of the “h” at the end of one makes it different.

My sister is Sara and as we are American she pronounces it same as Sarah. For some reason my MIL, who knew how we pronounced my sister’s name, kept referring to her as “Sah-rah”.

I am very English and pronounce Sara and Sarah the same unless told otherwise

She’s not pronouncing it incorrectly though, she’s just pronouncing it with a Scottish accent.

Criticising regional accents makes you sound a bit “dim and/or rude” OP.

I've always thought of Sara as being like Zara, except with an S instead of a Z, so a softer sound at the beginning - "Sahra" instead of "Zahra". I've never considered it to be the same as Sarah, which is pronounced "Saira".

David Bowie's surname rhymes with "snowy" and always has afaic.

Doubt Bowie cares

This is quite funny because my dog is called Bowie. We say it to rhyme with Zoe, but the amount of people who, even when we tell them how we say the name, immediately start saying it the other way is hilarious.

And they wonder why my dog just looks at them like this not having a clue they are trying to say his name.

Aww. Your dog could be 'Bowie-Wowie-Wow'. I wanted to have a dog and call him 'Ruff', so I could stand at the door yelling 'Ruff-ruff!' and the dog would run up...

MissFlite
I was going to say the same. I watched and interview with him once in which he said that he didn't care how people pronounced it.

He called his son Zowie not pronounced like Zoe and it was meant to rhyme!