Lady at testing center mispronounced Asperger's

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Butterfly88
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20 Apr 2016, 1:48 pm

So this lady who works at the testing center at my college, where I take all my tests with extra time, starts chatting with me today. She was talking about the event they are having (something for education majors about how to better teach students with Asperger's). She mispronounced Asperger's. She knows I'm disabled but I don't know if she knows what I have. Considering she is helping run the event I'd hope she'd at least say Asperger's correctly. Sorry, just venting.



yelekam
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20 Apr 2016, 10:31 pm

with those situations the most hat can be done is to point out it is actually pronounced by doing so directly in a calm manner or by pronouncing it correctly in conversation. Though yes, those instances are still annoying.



Outrider
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25 Apr 2016, 11:59 pm

But what is the 'correct' pronunciation?

If you want to get technical, the 'true' pronunciation in Austrian is something like "ɑːs-pɛr-gər" (approx. 'us-PAIR-ger'), with a hard 'g'.

Not 'A$$burgers'.

Most translations, especially English, butcher the original one.



Kuraudo777
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02 May 2016, 8:23 pm

I usually pronounce it az-ber/per-gers.


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randomeu
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03 Jun 2016, 1:09 pm

I heard a Teaching assistant back in high school (only 2 years ago sheesh im not that old!) pronounce it "a*s burgers" like two separate words, made me laugh haha


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DeepHour
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07 Jun 2016, 7:07 am

In a largely monoglot society like the UK, it is commonplace for even university educated, middle-class professionals like BBC newsreaders and interviewers to mispronounce words and names of foreign origin. I recall most commentators in a European football championship pronouncing the Swiss manager's name (Artur Jorge) as 'Arthur George', and many cannot even get 'Angela Merkel' right. I would think much the same thing applies in the USA - there was a hilarious sketch in the old satirical show Not The Nine O' Clock News making fun of American pronunciations of 'Lech Walesa'.

Foreign tennis players like Boris Becker and Roger Federer speak far better English than many British and American players.



SocOfAutism
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09 Jun 2016, 11:38 am

If you were to pronounce "Asperger's" in a German way, I think it would be:

AHZ-BAIR-GGERZZ (with a hard G)

I could be wrong. I didn't take German for long and I learned from a Bavarian.

It would be nice if people used one of the two common pronunciations (Asp-per-Gers with a hard G; or Asp-per-Jers with a soft G). I definitely agree with that. I do not agree with expecting everyone to use the correct foreign pronunciations of foreign words.

I live in the US. Some people here who are fluent in Spanish insist on using the correct Spanish pronunciation of words or names which are also used in English, but with a different pronunciation. For example, burrito. Or Puerto Rico. To say these things "correctly" there is some kind of R rolling and other nonsense going on that makes it hard for English speakers to understand what you're saying. If you speaking one language, just use the common pronunciation for THAT language. Don't make it difficult for everyone to understand you.