Comments on: Olivia O’Leary

By: Nick Barnett

Nick Barnett — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 00:11:07 +0000

No aspersions intended, in fact I smile wryly at these attempts at firmness.

By: Graham

Graham — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 16:37:52 +0000

Nick -
I stick to the pronunciation /ˈæspɜːgə/ for both the doctor and the syndrome, but I noticed that it was not only Ms O’Leary, but her two guests – both afflicted with the syndrome – who used the alternative /ˈæspɜːdʒəz/ throughout the programme, so in this instance, I would not be too hard on her!

By: Nick Barnett

Nick Barnett — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 09:22:22 +0000

She’s just done a programme on Asperger’s Syndrome, during which she pronounced the Austrian doctor’s name, Asperger, with a hard G and the common shortening of the condition, Asperger’s, with (the common, in Britain) soft G. This apparent contradiction is particularly irritating to many people who have Asperger’s Syndrome, as may be seen on their self-help websites, but she stuck rigidly to it.

She also pronounces her own forename unusually, as though it were O. Livia . . .

Oh! Olivia O’Leary, why must you be so wary? Why can’t you be more sweary? O. Livia, O. Laoghaire.

By: Pat O'Leary

Pat O'Leary — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 23:11:55 +0000

She pronounces it to rhyme with Mary…. as in the song One Two Three O’Leary/Games I played with Mary…..

Generally that’s the way it’s pronounced in Cork where the family name originates.

As it’s spelled Laoghaire in Gaelic (or Laoire in the newer form) meaning calf(laogh-)-herder (-aire) you can see why.

Anyhow – had we pronounced it any other way (e.g. O’Leery) our Dad would have kicked both our Erses……… (ouch!)

By: Michael Lamb

Michael Lamb — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 17:00:37 +0000

So did I. Pathetic, aren’t we? But I had made the same assumptions as you. I can only think that the names of the presenter and the jet plane are examples of both Southern and Northern Irish ɪːr being perceived as ɛər by mainland Brits in the BBC because in the context of –r it does not have the close i they expect in Irish accents.

I guess we all agree that such mimicry between accents of English is absurd, especially incompetent mimicry, but surely varying degrees of approximation to a realistic pronunciation of non-naturalized words and names in other languages can be appropriate in varying circumstances.

But even non-mimicry can seem extreme to people who disapprove of Brits of any sort. I cannot resist contributing an anecdote of my own. I was berated by a friend for calling him hju:ɪ (not his real name) məkˈmɑːn (he could do a parodic RP), and told in no uncertain terms that his name was kjʉi makʲˈmaχən. I said I would attempt that if he would desist from calling me ˈmɛɪχəl lɑːm. This arrangement soon lapsed.

By: Éamonn McManus

Éamonn McManus — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 21:18:23 +0000

Unless Ms O’Leary’s pronunciation has changed radically since she was on Irish TV back when I lived there, I expect she pronounces her name much as I do, which is to say /oʊˈlɪːri/. Some regional Irish accents would indeed pronounce her name with an /ɛ/ vowel but neither hers nor mine is one of them. (She is from Carlow and I am from Dublin.) So the BBC announcers’ rendition is doubly strange.
I listened to the beginning and end of several of her broadcasts available on the net, hoping to catch her in the act of pronouncing her own name, but to no avail.

By: vp

vp — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 20:05:33 +0000

Many British people pronounce the first name of the President of the United States as /ˈbærək/ instead of Mr Obama’s preferred /bəˈrɑːk/

This is despite the fact that there is no phonotactic reason why /bəˈrɑːk/ should be forbidden: indeed “Iraq” is widely pronounced /ɪˈrɑːk/ in Southern England.

There is an interesting discussion of this at the Separated By A Common Language blog.

By: Timothy Mills

Timothy Mills — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 11:43:09 +0000

Interesting thought.

I wonder how much this perception – of people makng fun rather than being neutral – might extend to consciously faithful pronunciations of foreign words and place names, where such pronunciations diverge from the standard Anglicized form.

In my native (staunchly monolingual English-speaking) region of Canada, for example, using an “box” vowel [ɑ] (cardinal 5) rather than an “at” vowel [æ] when saying “Iran” or “Iraq” would come across as pretentious. This is despite the fact that the “box” vowel is more faithful to the native pronunciation of these words, and completely compatible with English phonotactics.

Pronunciations that violate English phonotactics come off as even more pretentious. For example, paying attention to quantity distinctions in Italian consonants. (To be fair, I only remember seeing this in a movie, spoken by a very pretentious character.)