An annual analysis of America’s most misprounounced words by captioners has listed ‘Edinburgh’ among the most mispronounced words of 2022.
The study identified the top words of 2022 US politicians, public figures, newsreaders and others on live television have most consistently struggled to pronounce correctly.
Now in its seventh year, the study was conducted by The Captioning Group, North America’s premiere real time closed-captioning company, after being commissioned by language learning platform Babbel.
The Captioning Group is responsible for captioning and subtitling real-time events on television (with over 1 million hours’ experience in both Canada and the U.S. since 1991). They also provide services in the deaf and hard-of-hearing world, from pro bono work to meeting support.
READ MORE: Lulu's last laugh, accents and the Scottish art of 'styleshifting'
Edinburgh featured on the list as American news anchors faced criticism for mispronouncing the Scottish capital during coverage of Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral in September.
Joining Edinburgh [ed-in-BRUH] on the list were words and names such as Adele [uh-DALE], Chicxulub [CHICK-choo-loob], Domhnall Gleeson [DOH-null GLEE-sun], Negroni Sbagliato [ne-GRO-nee spah-lee-AH-toh], Zaporizhzhia [zah-POH-reezha] and Novak Djokovic [NO-vak JO-kuh-vich].
Honorary mentions were also given to Dnipro [nee-PRO] and Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha'apai [HUN-gah TON-gah HUN-gah ha-AR-pie].
Esteban Touma, Babbel Live Teacher at Babbel commented: “2022 has been a busy year with some hugely significant political, geographical, sporting and cultural events dominating the headlines.
"Public figures on our screens have had to tackle some tricky pronunciations that might not come so naturally to an American English speaker - which can have amusing outcomes.
"But it’s great to see words and names from different cultures and languages from around the world enter into conversations in the US, and the most important thing is to give it a go and not be intimidated by a new word, and be open to learning. Of course, we’re always happy to help people out with the correct pronunciations!”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel