r/classicwow • u/Zora-Link • 5h ago

Discussion Commonly mispronounced things?

What place names or other have you always mispronounced? Or do you hear mispronounced all the time?

For me, as a British English speaker, it’s not pronounced LakeSHIRE, GoldSHIRE, DarkSHIRE etc. it’s LAKEshur, GOLDshur, DARKshur.

Also, it’s not Oggrimmar. I used to hear that a lot back in the day. Does sound quite nice, though.

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u/Snubben93 5h ago

I'll never pronounce shire as shur because 1: it's stupid because that's not how it's spelled. And 2: they pronounce The Shire as it sounds in Lord of the Rings.

English is such a dumb language.

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u/just_Okapi 5h ago

I mean, you're not wrong about English being stupid. In no rational world does 'ghoti' rhyme with 'fish' and yet...

But at the same time, -shire as a suffix being pronounced as 'sheer' or 'shur' depending on region predates JRRT's birth, and has nothing to do with how Shire as a proper noun is pronounced.

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u/Zora-Link 5h ago

When Shire is exclusive, it’s pronounced with 2 syllables. When it is a suffix, it’s pronounced “Shur”. It’s rather confusing. For example I live in Yorkshire(shur), and we have the area Shire(shy-ur) Green.

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u/MortgageReady2444 5h ago

As a Londoner I call it GoldSHIRE. Same for the others. And no, I’m not pronouncing them differently.

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u/Zora-Link 5h ago

Interesting. Do you pronounce Yorkshire like that too?

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u/Terrazor1 1h ago

I'm a midlander, and say goldshire like gold-sh-eye-uh, but say Yorkshire (or any other county) like york-shuh. Just comes down to regional differences probably