AIBU for pronouncing the name Brooke as BrOOKe rather than Bruck

[MoserRothOrangeandAlmond]

I’m a Geordie and pronounce words such as Book, Look and Cook with an oo sound rather than the uck sound.
A family who are from about an hour a way said that her daughter is sick of everyone pronouncing her name incorrectly.

I explained that it’s an accent thing as we pronounce those words with an oo sound rather that uck so it wouldn’t occur to most people to pronounce it that way and they wouldn’t deliberately mispronounce her name!

Just as if I go another part of the country or different country they pronounce my name differently depending on their accent.

AIBU?

Would anyone here who would copy an accent also copy an Indian or African persons accent when saying their name? So you’d be talking perfectly normally to them in your English accent then would change it to an Indian accent for their name? If that was any other word I thing it might sound a bit racist in some circumstances. Like you’re mocking them.

And would you have a go at an Indian person who was struggling to pronounce a British name? I have an Indian colleague who struggles with W sounds. (I believe in his language W and V are the same? Something like that. But he genuinely struggles to say a W sound) so he pronounces William as Villiam. It’s not done in malice. No one would complain.

No one, anywhere in the country, actually says Bruck

Do you mean county? As country isn't true as people clearly do. Including me.

😂 I've decided that this post is really impossible because everyone is saying the words to themselves in their own accents and, because very few of us know how to understand (or use, or write down) phonetic symbols, the rest of us can't know what that sounds like.
So, in my accent, "bruck" would be pronounced like up, dug, luck, cup etc and there is no such word. There is (in my accent) the word "brook", which is pronounced like hook, look, crook etc. It's not pronounced "broooook", by me, but it might be by others.
I believe, as a matter of courtesy, you should call people the name they want to be called, pronounced in the way they pronounce it.

Me too. I literally made a video and uploaded it to YouTube of me saying it and linked to it on this thread.

Twice

I am such a sad bastard

But a sad bastard who says bruck 🤣

To those of us in the south though you’re not saying bruck, you're saying brooke to rhyme with our book/look. You say truck/bruck as our books/look, but not as our truck/bruck. That’s where the confusion is. No one says bruk for Brooke as in the way bruk is said in the southern accent.

How is saying someone's name the way they have ASKED you to say it 'mocking their accent'?

They have asked you to pronounce it a certain way, you are capable of saying their name in the way they say it (IN YOUR OWN ACCENT) so why would you continue pronouncing it completely differently?

How is saying someone's name the way they have ASKED you to say it 'mocking their accent'?
They have asked you to pronounce it a certain way, you are capable of saying their name in the way they say it (IN YOUR OWN ACCENT) so why would you continue pronouncing it completely differently?

There's a difference between saying someone's name actually wrong, and saying it correctly but in a differing accent.

So again my example of the name Pearl - would you expect someone with a non-rhotic accent to pronounce the R, when they don't pronounce Rs in similar words, in any other words when they speak? It would sound odd and unnatural.

No, I would expect everyone to use their own accent to pronounce everything they say, especially of someone they don't know or have only read the name (rather than heard it), but if someone asked me to say their name differently to what I am used to I would have no problem with that at all.

But if they pronounced someone's name a certain way and the person ASKED them to pronounce it a different way when they are PERFECTLY CAPABLE OF SAYING IT THAT WAY in their own accent why would it be a problem? We aren't talking about rhotic/non rhotic accents here, it is irrelevant as OP is perfectly capable of making the uck sound, and the girls name is not Pearl.

We're not talking about a catch all thing here, although people are going crazy trying to make it that way, "what about americans, what about scottish etc", it is all irrelevant, we are talking about a individual problem with a specific (and easy) solution.

Even OP says she can say it the other way perfectly fine, except she says she would forget to say it the other way, because she is so used to it being the other way, well that's OP's problem to deal with, it's nothing to do with her being unable to say the name, so it it just rude to continue saying it "wrong" when you are perfectly capable of saying it "right" IMO.

But if they pronounced someone's name a certain way and the person ASKED them to pronounce it a different way when they are PERFECTLY CAPABLE OF SAYING IT THAT WAY in their own accent why would it be a problem?

You do you - I'm not calling anyone Bruck if they're called Brooke.

Why is the way you say any of these words in the south relevant to this post? The OP isn't from the south and it seems like the mother of the child in question isn't either. So why do you keep going on about southern pronunciations as if that's the final authority on the matter?

I wouldn't ask you to personally, my name is very generic and I've never had a problem when other accents pronounce it differently, but it wouldn't bother me in the slightest to slightly change the way I pronounce a specific name of a specific person I knew if they wanted me to and I could easily say it that way in my own accent.

I'm not sure why anyone who was capable of saying it the other way easily would dig their heels in so much, it just seems petty to me, but each to their own I suppose.

I’m trying to explain why some posters are insisting that no one in the country pronounces it bruck, as it seems to be confusing some people, like in the chain I quoted. I might not be explaining it very well. No one pronounces it bruck as in the southern way of saying bruck.

You're not mispronouncing it, it's your accent. People expecting you to pretend you have a different accent or to constantly try to police your vowel sounds so you change your accent to suit them are complete and utter idiots.

Reminds me of the a song by the Proclaimers, throw the R away.

"I've been so sad
Since you said my accent was bad
He's worn a frown
This Caledonian clown
I'm just going to have to learn to hesitate
To make sure my words
On your Saxon ears don't grate
But I wouldn't know a single word to say
If I flattened all the vowels
And threw the 'R' away

Some days I stand
On your green and pleasant land
How dare I show face
When my diction is such a disgrace
I'm just going to have to learn to hesitate
To make sure my words
On your Saxon ears don't grate
But I wouldn't know a single word to say
If I flattened all the vowels
And threw the 'R' away

Oh what can I do
To be understood by you
Perhaps for some money
I could talk like a bee dripping honey.
I'm just going to have to learn to hesitate
To make sure my words
On your Saxon ears don't grate
But I wouldn't know a single word to say
If I flattened all the vowels
And threw the 'R' away"

And they kept their accents too.

You say it the same as the parent from Armagh because they are obviously right (says the person from NI🤣)

Honestly I’d love to hear some of the earnest attempts at accents posters on here are claiming to do in a bid to avoid offence. Any takers for a Killough Katie or an Ardoyne Amy?

The OP isn’t saying the child’s name wrongly.

She is saying it in her local accent, like the rest of the town:

The conversation came to light after her mother said her daughter is sick of everyone mispronouncing her name. When asked further this included people at school, outside of school clubs and day to day life etc.

Everyone we know mutually have always pronounced her name Brooke with an ooo rather than an uck sound. This is for the past 6/7 years. The parents are from towns around and hour away therefore have a different accent.

She is a seven year old child. She will soon learn that you can’t police a town or region to change how they say a standard name.

She will soon learn that you can’t police a town or region to change how they say a standard name.

Exactly. I think part of the issue is that Brooke isn't that common a name that it comes up often, so maybe people aren't used to the variations in pronunciation of it.

Whereas with a more common name like Paul, people just accept that some accents pronounce the L and some don't and you can't make people say it one way or the other, it's just their accent.

But if they pronounced someone's name a certain way and the person ASKED them to pronounce it a different way when they are PERFECTLY CAPABLE OF SAYING IT THAT WAY in their own accent why would it be a problem?

Because I'd feel ridiculous, and I don't care to have my accent policed.

I am back to send my blood pressure soaring again

I think it was a common name ending in ‘r’ maybe it would be easier to explain. Like Connor - rhotic accents pronounce the R at the end, non-rhotic would say it more like ‘Connah’ I guess like the ‘ar’ in car for non-rhotic accents. Or Arthur. I would say ARR-thuRR but non-rhotic would sound more like ‘Ahh-thaa ’ Same name, but it is just pronounced differently with different accents. If I tried saying it like a non-rhotic person it would sound like I was taking the piss of out the person and just doing an insulting impression of them.

And yes apologies to any similarly intolerant Brookes out there but I’m not putting on a fake English accent to say your name. You’re getting the ooo and will just have to deal with it. Same as a lot of English people pronounce my name differently to how Scots do due to different accents and vowel sounds. I wonder if King Charles has ever asked any Scots to pronounce his name without the R sound in the middle

I've sorted the Brooook (Geordie), Brook (me) and Bruck (others) now, but had to Google how scarf and Giraffe don't rhyme for some people. This thread is great.

As a side note I could not call someone Bruck or Clur instead of Brooke or Claire, it would absolutely sound like I was taking the mick.

I would like to point out that OP’s AIBU was not “Am I being unreasonable to continue to say Broooke not Bruck now that I have been told to say Bruck?”

It was Is it unreasonable to use your own accent to say a person’s name rather than imitate how they say it? This stemmed from the revelation that the family considered her (and everyone else in the area) to have been mispronouncing the name all these years. OP was perfectly aware that her rendition was different to that of the parents but had no idea it was considered a “mispronunciation”. To be clear, she had not previously been expressly asked to say it as “Bruck”.

I'm English and certainly don't ask people to pronounce particular words just so that I can laugh at them.

I’m going to say it. I think seven-year-old Brook is being v precious and her parents are being ridiculous by pandering to it.

My kids have reasonably common UK names. Their names often get mispronounced, especially by non-native English speakers in London. They and we could not care less. As long as there is no malign intent, it does not matter. (The only occasion we were mildly irritated, was one child’s graduation as they had all been asked to write down clearly in advance how they wanted their names pronounced. The woman then mispronounced my daughter’s name which made us roll our eyes a bit.)

Brook’s parents needs to get a grip and tell their child that this does not matter.

Fair enough. You just label people as mentally deficient for pronouncing things in a way you don’t recognise. I get it.

Brooke is Bruck, as in a babbling brook, I just could not say Brewk, how ridiculous