Dear dreh, Dear dreh, Dear dreh

[Toomanythalias]

Following on from the Call the Midwife thread. Jeeze it's not difficult to pronounce Deirdre correctly, but so many English people continue to insult our beautiful old Irish name with that ghastly Coronation Street pronunciation. It's Dear dreh, folks, not DEEER DREEE.

@Toomanythalias as an aside, something I was thinking about recently, the name Orla, does it bother Irish people when people with non-rhotic accents (so the welsh and the English mostly in the U.K.) pronounce it without the R. In my accent I’m English Rs before consonants and at the end of words are ignored so I naturally say Aw-La. But in Irish R is pronounced so really I should say it more like Or-La. It’s never occurred to me before.

Unless you’re Irish… in which case it may be pronounce dear - dra.

Deirdre has been used in the UK for quite some while, it’s taken on a separate pronunciation. Language changes, and languages adopt and adapt words from other languages. that’s just how language works.

In Germany they pronounce Charlotte Char-lot-uh, it would be pretty weird if French people were bothered about this.

You can't "appropriate" a name, because names are not property. Names are constantly being borrowed and adapted from different countries and cultures, much like language in general. This has been going on for thousands of years.

In Scottish Highlands I have heard it pronounced Deer-dra

Deirdre has been used in the UK for quite some while, it’s taken on a separate pronunciation. Language changes, and languages adopt and adapt words from other languages. that’s just how language works.

On balance I agree with this. (Irish, living in Ireland, who usually is up in arms at the mangling of Irish names. And I have a specifically Irish name that is very hard for anyone not Irish to pronounce, from just seeing it!)

I hate 'Dear-dree' but see it as an adaptation not mispronouncing the Irish version

A lot of people I know who are called 'Deirdre' here, are Gaelgóirs & so pronounce it as Gaeilge so 'Dare-Dreh' which I prefer.

It could never be a beautiful name

I don't know about pp but for me Órla sounds strange said as Awla even though I realise it's down to accent.

Imagine someone from a different country pronouncing Harry as Ha-wee, for example.
You know it's because of their different accent, and it's not deliberate or anything, but it still does sound odd.

You're right which is why OP is being unreasonable. I'm Irish (northern) and I know it's pronounced here as she said it is, but to expect other nationalities to suddenly alter their accent and pronounce it the same is ridiculous.

I speak much like Nadine from Girls Aloud, so me trying to say an English name the way someone from London would is not happening. You either have your own accent or you drop it and adopt someone elses; no reasonable person would expect the latter.

Get in the car:

English say: "get in the kaa"... I would say it like "get in the kee-are" (not sure if I've written that right but that's close to how I say it)

So yeah, accents OP, they're different. shock horror lol

I'm from ROI originally but live in NI and even here I know a few Deirdre's and they pronounce it "Deerdree" too. Where I'm from we say "Deerdra" but I wouldn't pronounce it as that as they don't say it that way.

Yeah I get what you mean. I shall make more effort, it just never occurred to me before for some reason!

@EdithStourton
Bewley to other locals, and Beau lieu ("beautiful place" in French, pronounced something like Bo Lee er) to bewildered French tourists trying to find it on a map at your New Forest B&B. The B&B owner said she had spent time in France, but she told these poor French people to go to Bewley, and of course they didn't associate the word Beaulieu with Bewley.

On the Beaulieu note, I always wonder if Doublebois (Dubble-boys) in Cornwall was originally the French pronunciation. I'd rather visit Doo-blue-bwah!

There are no words in English ending in re that are pronounced 'rie' or 'ry' like flowery.

(Bracing myself for correction but I looked at all 1197 in the fun with words list).

In fact, most words ending in re are preceeded by a vowel, future, furore, mire, which makes a significant difference to pronunciation... but nothing approximating 'rie'.

The other 're' form in English comes from French words ending in re which in English is pronounced er.. Theatre.. pronounced Theater. Applying this method would be much closer to the Irish pronounciation.

It also annoys me that it is often spelt without the first r.. Dear Deidre in the Sun for example.

And yes... it is much more painful to Irish ears than Barcelona or Paris because there is a history of occupation, suppression of the Irish language and forced anglicisation of all Irish names which was a deliberate policy to conquer and subdue an entire population.

forced anglicisation of all Irish names

I have a history degree, issues around British occupation interest me as much as anyone - but that's not really the exact story in terms of why so many Irish names became anglicised or more pertinently, several generations post-Famine consciously moved away from speaking Irish or naming their DC Irish names.

Actually furore is pronounced fyoo-raw-ree, so does have that sound on the end.

As a Welsh person the mispronunciation of Lowri (Welsh form of Laura) annoys me. It is not pronounced like the artist from Salford. The low part rhymes with flow.

Omg such a boring topic. Do you tell French people off when they can’t pronounce English words properly? Or Spanish? People have different palates. Our mouths literally can’t pronounce other sounds the same if we didn’t grow speaking them. I can’t sound Irish nor can I sound Italian so I pronounce names the best I can in my accent. I can’t perfectly pronounce all my friend’s names who are from Mexico or Latvia just as they can’t pronounce mine perfectly either. Also appropriation? What a fucking divisive laugh you’re having there - you have zero idea who is Irish hence called an Irish name. Many people in England/across the uk have Irish ancestry so have Irish names in their family. You’re either racist or just spreading hate because you’re bitter about something else in your life. There are literally so many problems in this world and you chose.to chastise someone for not pronouncing something and “cultural appropriation”. It would have been soooo easy for you to post say “did anyone know in Ireland we pronounce it this way?” But no, you want to make everyone who pronounced it “wrong” feel like bad bad people. What a lovely person you are

What about David Bowie? I'm never sure how to say it! 😆

Interesting that I choose such an example in my haste.. the origins of this word are Italian which adds another dimension.. and the ending is kore of an 'ay' sound than an 'ie' or even an 'ee' sound. In fact... a close approximation to the Irish sound than the Coronation Street interpretation of the 'dre' ending.

@ChateauMargaux nope, it's definitely a ree sound on the end,

A close relative is called Deirdre but it’s pronounced the Corrie way. Her father was a Scottish Gaelic speaker. I assume it was pronounced that way so she wouldn’t have to correct people the whole time. She was born in the 1930s.

One of my children has a name from a different language but although we use the correct pronunciation, most people do not.

It’s not appropriation to use a different pronunciation that feels more comfortable to speakers of a certain language. No one wants to correct others all the time.

Not to mention, Americans could be argued to pronounce Los Angeles wrong - it is a Spanish term - it "should be" "Los Anheles", it never is.

ok, I spent many years in the US, never lived in the UK. How else do you pronounce Karen? I'm familiar with the (widespread in the US) pronunciation Care-en.

Exactly.

My native language has rolled "r"s, so Spanish and Italian are a piece of cake. I can unroll my "r"s and pronounce them the American way (because that's where I lived for a long time and that's the variant of English I speak).

But doing the back of the throat French "r"s is difficult. I can manage it, sort of, in many words, but sometimes I really fail and either swallow it completely or say some variant of a "h" sound.
I don't even try to get the German "r" - just roll it. There are many foreigners speaking German that way, the natives are used to it and quite tolerant.