It's Pronounced AS-PER-GERS!

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I don't say it for toilet humour at all, I'm not exactly into this 'arseburger' thing - it isn't particularly amusing.

Read again - ass (as in, how you would say the donkey ass - the 'a' pronounced as it would be in the word 'activist' - bur - and 'jeh' (as you would pronounce the j/g sound in Jones. Ass-ber-jeh's. That's just how people say it in New Zealand; I'm from New Zealand, I have a Kiwi accent (though my kiwi friends seem to think I sound more English now!), so I say it the way I've been brought up saying it.

I'm not saying anyone else should change the way they say it, simply that it'll be said differently in different parts of the world due to local nuances and accents, and there shouldn't be any of this 'you say it wrong' 'no you say it wrong' stuff. It's a word; everyone says them differently.

ass-burgers

yum

You do not seem to want to give any reason for pronouncing a "p" as a "b". You presumably do not do this to any other words. Why pick on this one?

It's the way it comes out with the kiwi accent. Simple as that. Like when I would say 'when' - to Brits it sounds like I'm saying 'ween', but to me it sounds like they're saying 'wairn'. It's just the way accents work.

Ah. So you (in particular, versus other Americans, Australians and New Zealanders that I have spoken to) are unable to use the letter "p". It seems such a waste, having yet another pair of consonants with indistinguishable sounds. Or... maybe you pronounce the letter "b" as a "d"? They look similar, as well. Then you could pronounce all "d"s as "p", to close the circle, and preserve total information content, at the expense of the encryption/decryption needed.

Not that anyone is paying attention to what I said earlier anyway, but I just want to amend what I said about S and P not occurring next to each other in German. They do, just not with an A in front of them in any other case. So I can't figure out how that would change the pronunciation, since the syllable is clearly split between the A and the E, so it could be Ah-shper-ghers (like the sound in spiel or spinnen) or Az-pehr-ghers.

And it it definitely the soft G sound in German, just like burger (but with a P).

But why don't we just call it AS and avoid the whole ass burger issue.

You aren't listening. Do you speak any other languages? Have you visited other countries? Then you'd know that in ALL languages and in all regions where a language is spoken there will be sounds that come out differently, depending on the accent. Kiwis say 'p's in the middle of words, don't be ridiculous. In this case though it comes out with a 'b' sound. If you listen carefully I'm sure you could hear the ''dark 'p' '' in there, as is present when we say it, but for someone from a country where I have to spell my simple 4-letter name to people day in, day out because they can't understand the nuances of my voice - and I speak very properly, I might add, due to vocal coaching at broadcasting school - I wouldn't expect you to. When you phoneticise something, as I'm doing when I explain our pronounciation, you simplify it so as not to include all dark and hidden sounds that accompany each vocalisation.

If you think this is bad, go to Denmark or Finland and hear them speak...

Interesting... so say it with a German accent and you might be halfway there?

Would love to learn German. Next on the list methinks...

I am. You merely reiterate the same lack of information. I ask questions... you ignore them. I do not hear any sign of any other word where you choose to substitute a "p" with a "b". Why pick on this word?

All this talk about "burgers" is making me hungry. It is "Aspergers" A-S-P-E-R-G-E-R-S.

Now there is a burger somewhere with my name on it HA-ha.

I'm not picking on it at all. It's just the way it comes out when spoken with a kiwi accent. Lots of words will sound strange to you when I say them - it's called lingual diversity.

I always mispronounce things first, and I then continue using the mispronunciation happily. I say it how I first saw it (I didn't know it was a German name); A-spur-gers.

I hear the "experts" say, ass-purgers.

You merely reiterate the same lack of information. I ask questions... you ignore them. I do not hear any sign of any other word where you choose to substitute a "p" with a "b". Why pick on this word?

And you aren't listening - it isn't 'picking on a word', or deliberate, it's the way it comes out with this accent. Nothing deliberate about it.

Let's just take some other examples - when I say 'when', I would pronounce the 'h', but it would be a 'dark 'h'', as in it's there but most wouldn't pick it up to hear me unless they use it too. Same thing as I do when saying maori words with 'wh' in them, like Whakatane - most would say the wh as a 'f', whereas I would use a dark h so it sounds more like 'w', as is the way for my local tribe. Or another language; let's try some Samoan. If you were to see the word 'palagi' (their word for 'white person' or foreigner), you would pronounce it with an 'ng'... palangi. Same as one of our star rugby players, Tana Umaga (said Umanga). Do you question why there's an extra n in there? No, it's just the way it is. Or errr.. another example... Danish. Let's try a basic sentence - jeg hedder lekiwi, 'I'm called lekiwi'. Look how that's written, and how it would be said - roughly something like yai(h)oourller-lekiwi. Bit different, no? Why? Because that's just the way you say it there.

No big deal. There are lots of words in english like that. Example: "Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt.". That doesnt mean it isnt English!

I am. You merely reiterate the same lack of information. I ask questions... you ignore them. I do not hear any sign of any other word where you choose to substitute a "p" with a "b". Why pick on this word?