What's something you heard at a zoo or aquarium from another guest that irritated you?

ParathePineapple said:
Somebody pronounced Okapi as an oakapie and to this day is probably the worst incorrect pronunciation of an animal I have seen, to be fair they did actually read the sign and did not just call it a zebra like other people do. I Also have heard red pandas referred as a rainforest animal and oddly enough a tapir as a baby elephant.
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Yeah, idk why but people have a really difficult time pronouncing animal names. Idk if this is normal, but I've also heard people call koalas koayla bears
 
Brayden Delashmutt said:
Yeah, idk why but people have a really difficult time pronouncing animal names. Idk if this is normal, but I've also heard people call koalas koayla bears
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I wouldn't put mispronunciations against people. As my grandmother, the retired English teacher has said, mispronouncing a word just means you learned it through reading. If someone mispronounces an animal's name, that just means they likely read the name and learned what the animal was that way, which frankly I feel is a good thing!
 
Neil chace said:
I wouldn't put mispronunciations against people. As my grandmother, the retired English teacher has said, mispronouncing a word just means you learned it through reading. If someone mispronounces an animal's name, that just means they likely read the name and learned what the animal was that way, which frankly I feel is a good thing!
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I guess. Either way, there's quite a few animal names that get mispronounced far too much.
 
Brayden Delashmutt said:
I guess. Either way, there's quite a few animal names that get mispronounced far too much.
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Calling a koala a "koayla", is far more acceptable than calling a sea lion a stingray as far as I'm concerned ;) Like Neil said, at least they're making an effort to learn the species' name by reading the sign rather than simply blurting out the first species name they can think of.
 
Neil chace said:
I wouldn't put mispronunciations against people. As my grandmother, the retired English teacher has said, mispronouncing a word just means you learned it through reading. If someone mispronounces an animal's name, that just means they likely read the name and learned what the animal was that way, which frankly I feel is a good thing!
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I’ll confess to pronouncing Siamang incorrectly all my life. To this day, myself and 99% of the English speaking population (including zoo keepers) say either Si-mang or Si-ah-mang; but apparently the correct native pronunciation is See-ah-mang.
 
Zoofan15 said:
I’ll confess to pronouncing Siamang incorrectly all my life. To this day, myself and 99% of the English speaking population (including zoo keepers) say either Si-mang or Si-ah-mang; but apparently the correct native pronunciation is See-ah-mang.
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Wow, apparently I’ve been mispronouncing siamang all my life too!

I can also confess to two other animals which I have a history of mispronouncing. When I was a little kid, I would pronounce Masai giraffe as Maisy giraffe (to rhyme with Daisy). And until just a few months ago, I would mispronounce Sifaka as See-Fah-Kah instead of Sh-Fok. Even though I now know that sh-fock is correct, See-fah-kah still sounds better in my head. It will take a while to get used to the correct pronunciation but I’m sure I’ll come around.
 
There are also quite a few Animal names that have multiple common pronunciations, or even multiple valid pronunciations, whether based on regional dialects or just different ways of saying things. Especially if it's a regional thing, one may sound "wrong" to you even if it's not. For example, I'm so used to hearing people pronounce jaguar as "jag-wahr", that I do a double take/find it a little weird when I hear "jag-wire". That doesn't mean that either is an incorrect pronunciation though. Likewise, one pronunciation that I've heard two of that I am not sure of a potentially correct answer on is fossa, where I've heard both "faw-sa" and "foo-sa".
 
Zoofan15 said:
I’ll confess to pronouncing Siamang incorrectly all my life. To this day, myself and 99% of the English speaking population (including zoo keepers) say either Si-mang or Si-ah-mang; but apparently the correct native pronunciation is See-ah-mang.
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I'm constantly learning I'm pronouncing species names wrong, how the hell did I have that one right?!
 
Neil chace said:
There are also quite a few Animal names that have multiple common pronunciations, or even multiple valid pronunciations, whether based on regional dialects or just different ways of saying things. Especially if it's a regional thing, one may sound "wrong" to you even if it's not. For example, I'm so used to hearing people pronounce jaguar as "jag-wahr", that I do a double take/find it a little weird when I hear "jag-wire". That doesn't mean that either is an incorrect pronunciation though. Likewise, one pronunciation that I've heard two of that I am not sure of a potentially correct answer on is fossa, where I've heard both "faw-sa" and "foo-sa".
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It's foosa.
 
Zoofan15 said:
I’ll confess to pronouncing Siamang incorrectly all my life. To this day, myself and 99% of the English speaking population (including zoo keepers) say either Si-mang or Si-ah-mang; but apparently the correct native pronunciation is See-ah-mang.
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I’ve also heard the “mang” pronounced as “mung”.
ZooElephantsMan said:
And until just a few months ago, I would mispronounce Sifaka as See-Fah-Kah instead of Sh-Fok. Even though I now know that sh-fock is correct, See-fah-kah still sounds better in my head.
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I’m still gonna say see-fah-kah because it’s what I’m used to and the correct pronunciation might be misheard as a swear word.
As for a couple of my own mispronunciations, I thought “Dhole” was pronounced “doh-lee” until that one Wild Kratts episode proved me wrong. I also misspelled and mispronounced “Gaur” as “Guar”.
 
Does it really matter though? of course people have different pronunciation on same word, it doesnt just happen in animal names but literally any word. Like is argueing faw-sa or foo-sa the same as asking do you pronounce tomato with long a or short a? English is always pronounced a bit different depends on your location and dialects!
 
aardvark250 said:
Does it really matter though? of course people have different pronunciation on same word, it doesnt just happen in animal names but literally any word. Like is argueing faw-sa or foo-sa the same as asking do you pronounce tomato with long a or short a? English is always pronounced a bit different depends on your location and dialects!
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It does matter, especially for names that are more "ethnic" in origin. Westernizing names isn't a good thing.
 
TinoPup said:
It does matter, especially for names that are more "ethnic" in origin. Westernizing names isn't a good thing.
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But it's english after all? like that's what English people call the animal. As long as people know what you're talking about i don't think it matter that much. We are not trying to be racist or discriminate by pronouncing siamang differently?
 
aardvark250 said:
But it's english after all? like that's what English people call the animal. As long as people know what you're talking about i don't think it matter that much. We are not trying to be racist or discriminate by pronouncing siamang differently?
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Many species aren't english, is the thing. Pronouncing these names wrong, especially when you know better (the key here!), is a microaggression.
 
It is fine if you believe that you have the responsibility to pronounce foreign animal name as close to their origin as possible, but i believe as long as effective communication is reached it's not that great of a deal. Also the thing you learn about the animal is more important than what the name really is.

But let's not get too into the rabbit hole and just agree to disagree.
 
As far as I'm concerned, what's most important is trying to pronounce something correctly. If someone is at least making the effort, then I'm okay with them mispronouncing something. However, if one were to knowingly disregard the correct pronunciation, that becomes somewhat disrespectful in some ways. With that being said, I still find it pretty funny when zoos butcher some of the easiest Indian names for their animals.
 
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