Pronunciations

post by Solenoid_Entity · 2022-08-28T11:43:54.042Z · LW · GW · 7 comments

Contents

  The Problem[1]
  Pronunciations
  Pronunciations:
None
7 comments

The Problem^[1]

As part of my work I have to pronounce a lot of names and other uncommon/specialized words. More often than not this turns out to be hard.

This is quite time-consuming because of things like:

• People trimming off or omitting introductions from speeches, TED talks, podcasts etc.
• The scourge of machine-generated SEO-bait websites and YouTube channels with incorrect pronunciations flooding the internet with noise. 
• Even when they get it right:
  • This guy (headphone warning, try to guess the timestamp when he finally says it)
• People sometimes being confidently wrong in their podcasts etc. (guilty...)
• People with interesting names often not particularly caring about, or just being resigned to, mispronunciations.

Pronunciations

I'm going to maintain and regularly add to a list here of pronunciations for key names and concepts relevant to LW and its extended ecosystem. Hopefully this will be a useful resource for anyone creating audio content, giving talks, interviews etc. Maybe check here first before wading into Google.

Feel free to comment with corrections and suggested additions.\

Pronunciations:

• Apotropaic - æp.ə.trəˈpeɪ.ɪk
• Aviles - a VEE lays
• Bear Braumoeller - Beer BROW-mewlla
• Bernal - ber NAHL
• Brynjolfsson - brinYOLFsen
• Brower - like eyebrow
• Carnot cycle - Approximately French kaʁno - CARno
• Char-RNN - -CAR arr enn enn
• Compute (noun) - Com-PUTE 'how much comPUTE would it take to brute-force this?'
• COP 21 - 'cop' 21 (not initials), 'cop' like 'copper'
• Dag Hammarskjöld - Here are some native speakers. Darg Hammerheld/Hammerhold/Hammer-hyeld. Roll the r if you're fancy.
• Demeter - duh·MEE·tuh
• Duprex - doo PRAY
• Dylan Hadfield-Menell - DIL-lan HADfield-menELL
• Eleusinian - elle you SINny an
• Eli Lifland - Ee -lye LIFF-lend
• Eliezer Yudkowsky  - Elly EZzer Yood (rhymes wood) - COW - ski  
• Esfandiary - ESS fan diYAHri (based on the Persian pronunciation)
• Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications (ELSI) - EL-see
• Eudaemonia - you-da-MOAN-ia (you da man! no, you da man!)
• Evan Hubinger - Evan HEW-bin-ger (as in germ) 
• Frequentist - FREEquenTIST 
• FU YING (approximate pronunciation)- Foo (as in 'foot', don't hang onto the vowel), Ying (as written, approximately.)
• Stephan Guyenet - STEffen Geeyenay (hard g, rhymes with DNA)
• IARPA - eye-ARPA (with the dipthong between syllables 1 and 2). 'Ieyarpa.'
• Igic - IGG itch
• IPCC – EYE PEE SEE SEE
• Jaffe - Jaffy
• Jan Leike - Yarn Like-eh
• Kareiva (Peter) - Ka-REEva
• Kokotajlow - ko-ko-tie-low
• Leverhulme - Leaver - hume
• Mandarin (language) - MAN duh-ren (the last I is not sharp, the last syllable is weak.)
• Mercator - Mer - KAY - ter
• NeurIPS Conference - rhymes with europe's conference or 'new rips' conference. 
• Piers Millett – Somewhere between 'pierce' and 'peers', muh-LETT
• Sarewitz - sair (rhyme hair) uh wits
• SARS CoV 2 - 'sars KOH-vee two'
• Savulescu - savoo LEscoo
• Schlegeris - ? It's either shLEG-ris or shLERRis, I've heard both, TODO
• Seán Ó hÉigeartaigh - (yes) Shawn uh'HAY-ger-t(h)é 
• Selegiline - suh LEDGE uh lean
• Vernor Vinge – VIN-djiy 
• Wassily Kandinsky - va·suh·lee kan·din·skee 
• Wasieleski - Vashi-LESHky
• Zhdanov - ˈʐdanəf

1. ^{^}

   Test footnote

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