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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To wonder why people can’t say my name

101 replies

Rowennanotrowena · 17/11/2023 07:31

I am resigned to being Rowena is written correspondence. But why is it when I say ‘my name is Rowenna’ people keep saying Rowena? The two names look similar written down but sound very different so I’m not sure why people get it wrong. And AIBU to find it really irritating?

OP posts:
BertieBotts · 17/11/2023 23:58

I'm not talking about accents.

Think about the difference in pronunciation for example between word pairs like:

stripped / striped
hatter / hater
canned / caned
barring / baring
punny / puny

The first examples are all based on words where the consonants aren't doubled in the base word: strip, hat, can, bar, pun. But an extra consonant is added to preserve the vowel sound, because when you add the suffix (-y, -ed, -ing, -er, etc) the vowel sound after the single consonant changes the sound of the vowel before the consonant, in the same way that many people were taught "magic e" (can / cane, bar / bare) - the technical term is a split phoneme.

But in American English spelling, there are certain examples where this isn't done, and the single ending consonant of the original base word is retained. For example:

traveling
canceled
jewelery
cruelest
paneling

It's just a spelling rule difference. But to me having the sense that a single consonant with a vowel sound either side changes the first vowel, it makes me mentally read them as traveeling, canceeled, jew-ell-erry, cru-ellest, paneeling.

I know that's not how they are spelt or what it means. It's just what my brain automatically responds when I read words spelt in that way.

So I find it strange when somebody sees the name "Rowenna" and thinks "That says Row-ee-na" because according to English spelling rules, Rowenna could never be Row-ee-na, and Rowena would also not be Row-enn-a.

But I think I have an unusually phonics orientated brain so probably this is just a me thing, and not a universal thing.

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