How the heck do you pronounce 'bokeh'? PGN settles it once and for all

dozens of them

Let's eradicate uptalk and excessive "like"s before worring about the rest of it.

Or you could change the TV shows you get your assessment from:) ? And start complaining about the Aussies and their uptalk and "not very proper English" English. British English speakers are far outnumbered by the other types :)

Even the BBC are guilty of introducing Americansms, despite the number of English born English speakers who constantly point out their mistakes. My current annoyance is the Americanism 'contro-VERSy' when in English it is 'contrOVersy'. Most newsreaders can't even say 'royal' correctly, instead pronouncing it 'rawl'; but even our dear old Queen once spoke of 'rarts', when she was referring to mass public disturbances :-)

So American pronunciation is "wrong" if it's different from yours? You do realize that accents differ widely even within the British Isles and even more so outside, like Canada, Ausrtralia and yes, the USA. I recall a great sketch (I think it was Python) called Breaking Point (spoofing Sunday Break and Meeting Point, the required religious programmes on Sunday evenings in the late 60s). They had a vicar, a priest , a rabbi and a Hindu ( a variety of viewpoints). The host raised some topics he hoped would generate discussion, but the participants all agreed. The show ended as the host apologised to the audience that there had been no controversial subjects raised. At that point they all jumped on his pronunciation of the word and tried to argue theirs was the right way. As the set dimmed to silhouttes, you could see them coming to blows. No American in sight - Brits happily fight among themselves over that word :)

I didn't say the American pronunciation was wrong - only that British BBC newsreaders are no longer told how to speak British English correctly.

OK - they have all sorts of accents these days (no longer only standard BBC accents) and unfortunately not very good editing staff on the BBC news website. I've only heard "commonwealth accents" on BBC world news, no USA accents ........ yet :D In any case, the pronunciation is controversial even within "correct" British English - although each side thinks the other is wrong!

I once heard Huw Edwards introduce a piece with "So are you sat there on your sofa wondering why..." The present tense is SITTING! He wasn't even attempting the past tense, where many people make that basic mistake. It's only a matter of time before we hear on the BBC News: "So, did you went to work today as normal?"

Uninformed popular usage may make "irregardless" acceptable, but doesn't make it right.

Well, the japanese pronounce the "i" in Nippon short, so it doesn't sound like "neep". The 2nd syllable is "ponn".

I'd say the particular spelling of "Nippon" makes sense. As does "Nikkor". So i wonder why it's not "Nikkon"? :)

No, they pronounce the i as a long e sound, as in "neep pone," as I said above. I speak Japanese and I lived in Japan for 6 years. Nikon is a combination of Nikko and Ikon (of Zeiss fame). Pronounced "knee cone" in Japanese.

Your examples use the wrong vowel sound. Knee cone is the closest you can get to the correct pronunciation in English, just that you need to shorten it up rather than dragging out the sounds. Please don't make people think that it's pronounced "nick con" or because you apparently know Japanese and you should know better.

And how did you get "bo" as in "boss"?! It's the wrong vowel sound! Listen to the video you posted. The very first word spoken is "boke" and it is not pronounced like you said!

私は６年間日本に住んでいて、十分に日本語の練習をやってきた。母音は「あ、い、う、え、お」しかない。「boss」の「bo」は「ば」と発音するので、「ぼけ」の「ぼ」と一緒にしないで。

Who's conceited? Not me, thanks.

>「boss」の「bo」は「ば」と発音する
> Who's conceited? Not me, thanks.

Amusing, as the only thing you've managed to demonstrate is a「外国人にしては上手、しかし所詮小学生のレベルの日本語」and that you don't even know, or can't hear the phonetic difference which exists between, say, "boss" and "bass" (the fish).

Trouble is, there are some accents where boss and bass sound the same (Upstate New York is one, as I found out - my new landlord had turned on the hat water before I arrived :-) so "example" words can fail, too. The short o in British words like hot and cot is missing from many American accents - becoming a short a or an aw sound (cot and caught are identical for many). Two things are pretty sure, that the o in the Japanese pronunciation of boke is short (shorter than in bone or boat) and the ke is like kettle or ketchup, not like the kay in okay or bouquet. Whether that matters to any given individual is something we can't predict, but at least they would know its original pronunciation.

Antisthenes, neither boss nor bass is a long o sound like in boke. Are you just stupid or what? If you want to talk about conceited, you should look in the mirror.

Razor, in your YT example the vowels are short. It does not (at all) sound like "knee", it sounds like "nih". Case closed, as far as i see it. :)

I think you are all confused. "Long o" doesn't mean "drag the o out to make it last longer." It is the particular sound that the o makes, i.e. long o = go, mow, grow, slow, boat, etc. Short o = boss, hog, pot, not, etc. Long e = reap, sleep, deep, etc. The character に is pronounced with a "long e sound" but that doesn't mean you drag the sound out to make it last longer. Long or short in duration, it is still the long e sound.

Everyone's just stupid and out of step in the army, except our razorTM :) This seems like a terms issue. For most people "long o" means a long duration o. In Japanese you would expect to see もう　not も for the way most English speakers say mow. If you had said it's a "short duration long o", you might have confused people, even though it's not far off. For those who aren't familiar with the hairs we are splitting we can hear natives say the bo sound. Forvo doesn't have boke but they do have three natives saying boku - to sample the bo sound. https://forvo.com/word/boku/ All three use the o closer to the o in bock than to the o in boat. If they hear it, it won't matter how we might describe it to each other. The middle speaker is a bit closer to a short English go than the other two; the difference is more obvious in how they say koto https://forvo.com/word/koto/#ja - and may be what Razor is describing:)

You seriously think that the o in boku in those examples is closer to the o in "bock" or "lock"?

And "most people" must have forgotten what they learned in kindergarten. "long o" does not mean "long duration" and never did.

http://blog.maketaketeach.com/teaching-long-vowel-spelling-patterns/

Absolutely sounds more like bock than boat or mow in those examples of native speakers - bock-oo - i.e., definitely not bow - coo. I suspect you, as an American English speaker, don't know how I, as a British English speaker, say bock - most Americans say it differently from most Brits. That's why I found an audio file for everyone, so people would not have to rely on how you or I say anything or how we describe it or what we say it rhymes with in our accent (or what we may have been told in kindergarten in our respective countries - I did not receive such elementary training in my UK school - pronunciation had been acquired before any kind of school). The others, if they are still following along, can just listen and decide for themselves what it sounds like :-D PS - I suspected this was about terms and how you use them and how I use them...

@RazorTM
> And "most people" must have forgotten what they learned in
> kindergarten. "long o" does not mean "long duration" and never did.
> http://blog.maketaketeach.com/teaching-long-vowel-spelling-patterns/

The problem is that the issue goes slightly beyond that "long vowel spelling pattern" in English.

In Japanese, vowel length can have a /semantic/ role, and is therefore an important part of how the language is pronounced — see e.g. the difference between 京都 挙党 教頭, or the difference between 弐型 and 新潟.

The first syllable of Nikon/ニコン is the one present in 弐型, not 新潟.

Hence my pointing out that "ni" as in "nick", and "con" as in "concrete" are more appropriate phonemic analogies than "knee" and "cone".

"vowel length is an important phonemic factor in many other languages, for instance in [..] Japanese [..]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_vowel

I think the confusion is likely caused different accents and selection of "example words" I put "knee cones nick on con bob ken kettle bone broke bouquet
" as test words in to a reasonable online text to speech program https://www.naturalreaders.com and no matter who says the words, knee cone and nick on are quite different . (Set the speed to -2 - it's fun to play the different speakers) Perhaps Razor says knee cones the way the Nikon spokesperson says Nikon in the youtube link? Then what does nick con sound like in that same accent??? :D

You do realize this is tongue in cheek, right? I've seen less analysis of e=mc2.

@Bob Klein
but, etymology is more fun than e=mc2 !

You guys are talking about something entirely different than what I posted. I did not discuss comparing a picture with a lot of background blur vs one with no background blur. Bokeh is about the quality of the blurred background - not exactly the same as quantity of blur. If 2 portraits with blurred backgrounds were taken with different lenses and one has a slightly smoother blur, most people will never notice or care. The separation you get from blurring a background is a different issue than bokeh.

...yes I get that,

but four-letter words have a certain ring about them.

The creator is right. I'd like to hear any plausible case whatsoever for why the creator isn't the ultimate authority.

He doesn't have a degree in phonetics. How's that?

But in any case, g is meant to be soft in from of 'i' irrespective of his opinion.

Parents (generally speaking) don't have degrees in phonetics either. But their pronunciation of the names they give their children are in fact the canonical pronunciation (and spelling, too -- no matter how messed up).

It's unusual for children's names to come into use by millions of people without any communication of the intended canonical pronunciation, though.

After a certain point, there's no point suddenly brandishing a previously unseen bag, because the cat in question is long gone.

Once a large number of people assume a hard 'g' pronunciation (perhaps because the word Graphics starts with a hard g), then that becomes acceptable. Like the use of the word 'literally' to mean figuratively, whether we like it or not.

"You mean like gift, give, girl, giddy?

That's a gigantic generalisation."

Sure, it's not a law. Just a rule. And with english it's all rules, no laws and plenty of exceptions. But the rule is soft g before i.

"... I'd like to hear any plausible case whatsoever for why the creator isn't the ultimate authority."

Typical argument at this point will include either 'nuh-uh' or 'because' or even 'duh'

I have known it is 'jif' since the 90's
Can't not say 'gif' because G for graphics

I used 'because' but actually have a reason behind it :^)

I've always thought that it's pronounced GIF (jif) because it's G.I.F. that has become the acronym GIF.
my 2c

There IS a definitively correct answer. Just ask the creator of the format. That's canonical, end of. You must really dislike the creator's stated pronunciation to put up this much resistance to something that merits no argument whatsoever. Perhaps, in ignorance, you grew accustomed to the hard-G pronunciation. That doesn't mean there isn't a definitive answer. It just means you weren't privy to it.