Pronunciation?

[bleair]

It's often the case that one country or society will have an entirely different name for something than that thing's home country. For instance, Beijing has always been called Peking in England.

 

Sometimes, it is just a different pronunciation, not a different name, and that difference is respected, normally. Thus saying [Dia-mine] instead of the correct [Dia-meen] is the right practice in some places provided that it is the norm there.

 

Why that norm should have come about is another matter - and such changes often happen for no better reason than separation from original pronunciations by distance causing less frequent communication with the 'home'.

 

There is, now that electronic communication is better and more generally available, something of a push to reconnect with originals, now that this is possible. So if you want to do that, you can. Of course, local entrenched values and feelings also play a part. Unfortunately that communication can work against growth and diversity; one society flooding the world with its own practices - even to the extent of changing the original by mere volume of bombardment.

 

Contrary to the above, of course, is the general 'PC' push to pretend that nobody is ever wrong and that what little Jimmy chooses to think is as good as anything else. Combine this with the media-market's insistence on the illusion of personal choice, and folk have a hard time sorting out what's right and wrong.

 

Very interesting that the employees of Diamine did not pronounce their own product name in the standard way!

 

This is a great, fun, thread

 

My favorite variation on this is hearing British historians say the word samurai.. as in SAM-you-RYE… no matter that the japanese language has no such sounds… the british empire will fix your silly mis pro-nun-ski-ations for you real good.

[mhosea]

It is possible that the origin of the name "Diamine" has been lost, but my son suggested to me that it might have been a contraction of "Diamond Mine", which would be consistent both with the logo and with the preferred pronunciation from company representatives.

[beak]

This is interesting:

 

 

Although the company's newer ink stamp pads for craft work are listed elsewhere in its own literature as 'Colourmine'. the product itself bears this two-word title, which we can only say one way.

 

This probably reflects the company's preferred (though not necessarily correct) pronunciation. Or perhaps it is a pun?

Edited December 8, 2013 by beak

[Raskolnikov]

How on Earth could I have missed this thread?!

 

It's funny because in italian "Diamine" is an exclamation of sorts. Like "Oh my God!" or "What the hell", but more prosaic.

So whenever I buy it, as I enter the shop I say something like "I want a Diamine, diamine!". At least, I used to till the joke got stale These days I just point at the boxes and say "I'd like that one".

Thanks to whoever started and contributed to this topic

[beak]

 

This is a great, fun, thread

 

My favorite variation on this is hearing British historians say the word samurai.. as in SAM-you-RYE… no matter that the japanese language has no such sounds… the british empire will fix your silly mis pro-nun-ski-ations for you real good.

There are certainly in excess of 5000 spoken languages in the world. Now I've finally come across someone who can pronounce any word in all of them exactly as their native speakers do, and never changes a syllable to suit his or her own tongue. A red-letter day.