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What is the correct pronunciation of the given female name "Gillian"? J.C. Wells' Longman Pronunciaiton Dictionary gives only the form /?d??l i??n/ (as in "ginger"), on the other hand I've heard an interview with David Fincher, who pronounced the name of his screenwriter /?g?l i??n/ (as in "get").
I happened to look up the word "nob" on Kindle's Oxford American Dictionary to be sure it meant what I thought (and I was wrong), but a secondary meaning is "a male ferret". A female ferret is a gill. I doubt I will have much use for that information, unless I'm in a really strange trivia contest.
However, the entry for gill gives a pronunciation like fish gill or Vince Gill, with Jill as a secondary pronunciation, and the word comes from the given name Gillian. I suppose that means Gillian is most likely pronounced like fish gill, but it is sometimes pronounced Jillian.
And given the nasty reputation that ferrets have for being vicious, it sounds like Gillian is in a dead heat with Lilith, the name of Adam's first wife, as the worst name you can give a baby girl.
And this w2hole thing reminds me of a quiz my second grade teacher gave us. Correct the spelling of some words. I corrected "gril" as "grill" and was marked incorrect, because it's really a misspelling of "girl". I *still* feel like I was treated unfairly, after all these many decades. I suppose if they find Nrs. Reed's corpse somewhere, I may need to have a good alibi. I probably ought not sleep alone for that reason.
On the topic of hard-g and soft-g, the question came up as I was listening to an audio book. (Now that I need reading glasses I find I cannot avoid nausea while reading on a moving train, so I have switched to audio reading.) The narrator read that the "moon was gibbous." I was taken aback when he used the soft-g for gibbous. The first several dictionaries I consulted agreed with my assumption that the only pronunciation is with a hard-g. But M-W actually lists the soft-g pronunciation in full, with an alternate hard-g.
M-W gibbous
So I sit and stand corrected.
deacon8, the details you've dug up are fascinating. However, Oxford Dictionaries give the pronunciation of gill as a female ferret with soft "g" - Oxford Dictionaries gill
And the archaic meaning of "gill" as "a young woman, sweetheart" indicates that Gill doesn't have to be such a bad name for a girl. I guess it had similar connotations to "vixen" or "foxy lady".
Having found in a rather less reliable source, i.e. Wikipedia, that Jillian/Gillian is a female variant of the name Julian, I've decided personally to stick to the soft "g". However, since my original post, I've heard a number of podcasts on "Gone Girl", in which speakers pronounce the name of its screenwriter with either soft or hard "g". I've heard both variants from the British as well as American speakers, and I've even heard one speaker switching from one to the other pronunciation without any apparent reason. All this goes to prove, in my view, that when it comes to pronunciation, nobody knows crap, which I find very amusing, as a non-native speaker of English.
I do wonder whether two hard "g"s in "Gone Girl" unconsciously influence the speakers who want to continue the alliteration? Gillian Flynn, the author of "Gone Girl"...
On a side note, I do agree that Mrs Reed was wrong in not giving you a point.
Your teacher was wrong. I had a similar comma trauma in 4th grade with an unreasonable quiz and teacher -- one bad apple in a bushel of prime fruit. Later in life I learned that sometimes people have axes to grind, and they are indiscriminate about whom they test the blade on, often seeking easy prey.
deaconB said
I corrected "gril" as "grill" and was marked incorrect, because it's really a misspelling of "girl". I *still* feel like I was treated unfairly, after all these many decades. I suppose if they find Nrs. Reed's corpse somewhere, I may need to have a good alibi. I probably ought not sleep alone for that reason.
I can relate. I was one of three left in a fourth grade spelling bee when I was asked to spell the word synonymous with "tall pointy thing with a rocket engine in the bottom." I said m-i-s-s-s-a-l, being the good Catholic boy that I was. No, my son, it's m-i-s-s-i-l-e. What was hard about this was that I was an absolute space geek and had no reason to think they meant otherwise, but that schwa sound killed me. But it wasn't fair.
Gill is a common name in Commonwealth countries, spelled either with a G or J. It seems there are more G varieties than J. Case in point: I have two very important Gills in my life, one is my boss the other is my girlfriend. Both pronounce it with a soft G as does every other Gill I know, and that carries over to Gillian. From this experience, I think all Gills should henceforth spell their names with a J and end the madness.
tatiana.larina said
I do wonder whether two hard "g"s in "Gone Girl" unconsciously influence the speakers who want to continue the alliteration? Gillian Flynn, the author of "Gone Girl"...
Or maybe they're influenced by the hard Gs in "Gilly Gilly Ossenfeffer Katzenellen Bogen by the Sea". Or am I the only one who's heard the Four Lads?
stevenz said
I can relate. I was one of three left in a fourth grade spelling bee when I was asked to spell the word synonymous with "tall pointy thing with a rocket engine in the bottom." I said m-i-s-s-s-a-l, being the good Catholic boy that I was. No, my son, it's m-i-s-s-i-l-e. What was hard about this was that I was an absolute space geek and had no reason to think they meant otherwise, but that schwa sound killed me. But it wasn't fair.
I recall my pre-teen brother remarking, back in the 50s, that they were just asking for trouble, by calling them missiles. The device has self-esteem issues; they should've named them hittiles.
deaconB said: I recall my pre-teen brother remarking, back in the 50s, that they were just asking for trouble, by calling them missiles. The device has self-esteem issues; they should’ve named them hittiles.
That's hilarious, and rather clever for a young kid to come up with. Sounds very "Carlinesque." Gotta wonder if he stole that from George. But a quick Google search of "missiles" + "hittiles" brings up 108,00 results, some dating back quite a ways. If you look around some of those search results, you'll find that there really are weapons called "hittiles" (which surprised me, as I'd never about them).
deaconB said
And this w2hole thing reminds me of a quiz my second grade teacher gave us. Correct the spelling of some words. I corrected "gril" as "grill" and was marked incorrect, because it's really a misspelling of "girl". I *still* feel like I was treated unfairly, after all these many decades. I suppose if they find Nrs. Reed's corpse somewhere, I may need to have a good alibi. I probably ought not sleep alone for that reason.
I'm still stuck on this silly teacher. Philosophically speaking gril is a misspelling of grail, grip, gorilla, and banana. Absent any context or reference information, grill (with both Ls) could also be a misspelling of girl or grail or any other word in the English language, or any other language based on the Latin alphabet for that matter.
I also had a science teacher who done me wrong, and I'm still bitter every time I give blood, which is regularly. Long story.
I think as children we hold our teachers to such a high standard since we learn best when we trust everything they say. When they prove we can't trust them, we feel fundamentally betrayed. But that's when the adult learning begins, and we start thinking for ourselves. So ultimately the betrayal does us good, like fledglings pushed from the nest. So maybe we need to thank our Mrs. Reeds for graduating us to self-education, albeit painfully.
Little kids are eager to decipher the mysteries of the printed word, and everything else, if we think about it, and yet by the third grade, many kids hate school. That's almost as obscene as pedophilia, not quite.
I thought I hated history until I learned better in my thirties. If I had the time and the eyesight, I'd like to write a textbook of American History that would tell the story through a series of action/adventure, dramatic, and romance stories, that would let kids really understand what life was about for families in various eras, and would NOT fill kids with jingoistic lies. If historical fiction about Adams is a big hit on premium channel TV, it wouldn't need to be "dumbed down" or turned into textbook sawdust.
Glenn said I'm still stuck on this silly teacher. Philosophically speaking gril is a misspelling of grail, grip, gorilla, and banana.
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I also have experienced the other extreme, the model teacher who will not disappoint. If a pupil proposes that Gil is banana, she will offer due contemplation, by way of her eyes slightly widening, a tiny smile and tiny ah uh that say how so interesting. Except she will say nothing, as if to say I will just file that away for now, such clever thought for such youth. Then she will point to another pupil: another clever and outlandish idea. Again no comments, other than the smile that means due contemplation, file it away in my mental file. The cycle repeats several times, until she says, 'So, the next page...'
Robert said
I also have experienced the other extreme, the model teacher who will not disappoint. If a pupil proposes that Gil is banana, she will offer due contemplation, by way of her eyes slightly widening, a tiny smile and tiny ah uh that say how so interesting. Except she will say nothing, as if to say I will just file that away for now, such clever thought for such youth.
One of the dictionary websites just pulled that. Is it in regard rto or in regards to?
Seems to me that you show regard for the subject under discussion, while an attaboy is giving regards, but they say eith singular or plural is acceptable. While a dictionary need to be descriptive of the language, it should also advise on how to "sound eddicated".
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