Last Thursday night, P had a meeting and so Caroline and I went out to dinner with Mimi and Bops. They picked us up and on the way to dinner, Mimi said, “Did you see they’ve opened up a new health food restaurant down the street?” And I replied, “Yes, I’ve heard good things about it. I don’t know what all they have on the menu, but I heard they have good acai bowls. (I pronounced it with the “c” as an “s” sound) Or acai (pronounced with a “k” sound) or however you say it.”
Mimi and I agreed that neither of us really knew the correct pronunciation or whether or not we’d even like an acai bowl. We also determined that neither of us really knew how to pronounce “quinoa”. I said I used to think it was “qu-no-ah” until someone told me it was “ki-nwa”.
Whatever. You know how you pronounce “Oreo”? Just like it sounds. OREO.
Anyway, I was working on some writing projects that have imminent deadlines. And this is how that process goes for me:
1. Check email.
2. Open up Word document and see if 10,000 or so brilliant words have magically appeared overnight.
3. Check Twitter to see if everyone is still angry. The answer is yes. Back slowly away from Twitter.
4. Look at blinking cursor on Word document and wonder why I ever thought writing a book was a good idea.
5. Check Instagram because it’s happier than Twitter and there are lots of funny dog videos.
6. Decide to get serious and go back to Word document. Type 150 words that are all horrible and make no sense. Start a sentence with “From the dawn of time…”
7. Wonder how you actually pronounce “quinoa” and decide to google it.
So I googled “How do you pronounce quinoa?” And this youtube video popped up first, so I watched it.
Listen. I am a fairly intelligent, college-educated woman and I thought this was totally serious. I honestly thought for a minute, “Wow. That is very different and even harder to pronounce than I thought.”
Then I noticed another video below it that looks exactly the same, but is actually the legitimate pronunciation video site.
But what’s the fun in that? Can you even imagine the people who are learning English as a second language and stumble on to Pronunciation Manual instead of Pronunciation Book? I would like to meet them and have long conversations.
Needless to say, I spent more time than I care to admit here watching countless videos of various pronunciations according to Pronunciation Manual. And since the world seems so angry, I feel that I should share a few of my favorites because I think we can all agree this is mindlessly hilarious.
And this one may be my favorite.
Hope you have a great Thursday.