Asklemmy

43895 readers

985 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

-12

Why do the English pronounce the first name "St. John" as "sinjin" but they pronounce the last name "Saintclair" as "saint clair" (and not "sinclair")? (slrpnk.net)

submitted 16 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) by sgibson5150@slrpnk.net to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

26 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Checkmate, Chuck. 👑

Edit: Given the number of downvotes I'm getting, I'm guessing a lot of people have just learned that they've been pronouncing St. John wrong. Don't beat yourselves up. It's not like it's a terribly common name.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Berttheduck@lemmy.ml 43 points 16 hours ago (4 children)

We don't as far as I know. St John is usually pronounced Saint John. Though English is weird and you might have come across a local pronunciation. Do you know where abouts in the UK that one comes from?

[–] Preacher@lemmy.world 13 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Roger Moore pronounced his alias St John Smythe as "Sinjun Smythe" in "A View To A Kill"

[–] sanguinepar@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

The definitive answer :-)

[–] myself@lemmy.ml 4 points 13 hours ago

Oh no not in Utica

[–] Railison@aussie.zone 6 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

Though the English ~~is~~ are weird

Local names in Britain do my head in

[–] sgibson5150@slrpnk.net 5 points 16 hours ago

Perhaps not precisely "sinjin". Wikipedia gives the IPA as /ˈsɪndʒɪn/ or /-ʒən/ where the ʒ is the g in beige or the s in pleasure so it's a bit more of a zh sound than a j sound: "sinzhin"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_John_(name) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/English