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?

Yes, almost all UK tv, radio and film is populated by people from Yorkshire and the London accent is hugely under-represented.

The thing is, you are actually saying Bruck in the way that your accent perceives it. If you had the same accent as the child but still mispronounced it, then that would be careless.

To my ears it sounds almost buck, but not exactly. Not a pronounced u, perhaps halfway between u and i.

It also baffled me when my daughter did the Read Write Inc scheme in school and "put" was a red word, i.e you couldn't sound it out because it isn't phonetic. It is phonetic in our accent though, rhymes with but, hut, nut, cut and also foot. It's the same "u" sound as in the words luck, look, buck, book

People tend to listen to regional radio stations, so the hosts have regional accents, which is also true for news channels. Look North for example does not have hosts with London accents. Film is quite often in American accents, as are many series on Netflix, Prime etc. The London accent isn’t as widespread as you think.

Because - as is the point of this whole thread - people in places like Newcastle on Tyne, Stoke on Trent, Liverpool can pronounce a long oo sound in book, cook etc.

Shook, truck and muck rhyme and sound exactly the same in some accents

This exactly.

Exactly. They're the same in my accent. Shook and shuck would be said the same for example.

But the PP says food has the long oo sound, like oooo. You say it's book that has that sound. To me, they're the same.

Your elocution lessons didn’t teach you the RP/southern accent. In RP look and book don’t rhyme with duck but they also don’t rhyme with moon and food. There’s 3 different sounds there, long oo, short oo and u. So no nothings changed you were just taught a northern accent in your elocution lessons rather than the southern one.

Mine would be “I tuk a luk at Lewk and his hewk while reading a bewk” and “I’m in the wud in a bad mewd because I forgot my hud like anyone cud”.

Another NE here, although as some will be able to tell by ‘bewk’ instead of ‘boook’ I’m Sunderland not Newcastle. Interestingly though I’m on the outskirts and so pronounced ‘bewk’ with a less pronounced ‘ew’ sound than people 10 minutes closer to town do.

FWIW OP, I automatically say ‘Bruhk’ I think because of Brooke on One Tree Hill being my first reference for the name, but my friend is Brooke pronounced how you say it and I, as well as friends who say ‘buk’ for ‘book’ pronounce it how she said because it’s her name, to me it’s nothing to do with accent and now you know just say it how they say it.

Isn't this an accent/ way of speaking issue not a name mispronounciation issue?

It's like if the name was Mr and Mrs Garage.

Some people would say Mrs Gah-rah-ge (long vowels)
Some people would say Mrs Ga-RIDGE.

If you are Mrs Garage, good luck persuading either group to pronounce it differently.

Mrs Scone - Skonn or Sc-OH-ne.

If you pronounce Br -ooo-ke (to rhyme with puke) as opposed to Brook (to rhyme with (not quite but closer) bruck) because of a regional accent variation, that's just how you speak.

Which is worse
Person A demanding that Person B change their regional accent to suit their sensitivity.
or
Person B refusing to change their way of pronouncing a word because it upsets Person A.

I honestly don't know? Both require one person being 'inconvenienced'. Changing your way of speaking from an accent perspective is a big deal. On the other hand, if you know it bothers someone... really not sure here.

In parts of the East Midlands these all have an 'uh' sound. Look and luck sound almost the same where I'm from, but where I now live these 2 words have distinctly different vowel sounds. Regional accents differ sometimes markedly and sometimes subtly. Saying 'that's not how something is pronounced' is people using their own accent as the presumed 'correct' baseline.

Name pronunciation is a difficult one though, obviously people will have their own local accent, and it is sometimes very difficult to override this.

Your pronunciation is up to you but if you've been told that it's BrOOk rather than Bruck, to continue to do so would be unpleasant, as in you can't be bothered.

I have a French friend called Isabelle and I always say EEsabelle, not ISabelle. It's only courteous and she does the same for me as my name could have a French pronunciation.

Book isn’t pronounced buck, look isn’t pronounced luck so I’m not sure where you’re getting this from

Yes they both are pronounced like that for me and round these parts, so this thread is well confusing 😁
Book and buck sound the same

Because they have very different sounds in RP/southern accent. We have a long oo as in food and a short oo as in book.

My mum was a Geordie. She pronounced those words like you do. I think when it’s someone’s name though, you should pronounce it the way it’s meant.

I really can’t make sense of what the various suggested pronunciations are because obviously without using phonetic symbols it’s pointless saying “like luck” if we all pronounce “luck” with a different vowel sound. But just to say that I don’t agree with people saying you have to pronounce a name in the same accent as the person saying it. English people with non rhotic accent say “peet-uh” for Peter but I say “peet-err” with an R sound because I have a Belfast accent. I do not, should not, and will not put on a different accent to say “Peet-uh” because that is batshit. Same with the vowel sounds, I’m not going to say “Kate” with an English accent!!

I wonder if some people just have less of an ear for accents than others- they have no problem understanding someone with a different accent to them but by the time it reaches their brain they have forgotten that the words sounded different to the sounds that they themselves would make.

Others are just more tuned in. I find your “put” example fascinating as that presumably means that “put it in the hole” and “putt it in the hole” would sound the same to you! It’s not how I would say “put” but I absolutely recognise that accent.Vowels are funny things and usually the first thing to change in a dialect- so, for example, I was brought up surrounded by Central Scotland dialect and they would say “pit” as in “pit it doon” (“put it down”). I can swap instantly between that and my normal Standard Scottish (where “put” rhymes with root, boot etc) so I guess I’m used to vowels being all over the place…

It would never in a million years occur to me to pronounce Brooke like Bruck. I would assume accent differences if I heard it. Why even spell it with a double o if it's a u sound.

Can we all agree that OP has been asked to pronounce it like Brooke Shields, but had been pronouncing it with a long "oo" sound on the middle (like the word "loo")?

I think you have to adapt OP. There are some name pronunciations that don't come naturally to me (eg US versions of Aaron and Graham) but I would make an effort if someone preferred that version.

Agree with this. I know a Pamela who pronounces it Pa-mella. If I saw Pamela I’d say “pamla” but that’s not how she pronounces it, so why would I?

That's just accent. I do say book as buck, so I would naturally pronounce the name Brooke as Bruck.

I'm what's generally referred to as posh scouse, which sounds like an oxymoron, but does exist.

Absolutely not! In the south west, we pronounce it Brooke. No one, anywhere in the country, actually says Bruck. I don't think that's what OP means. She's talking about her accent emphasising the oo sound so it sounds more like the oo in boo, coo, oomph, oodles etc, not actually "uck" as in duck, luck and fuck.