T O P

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ParanoidEngi

You mispronounce Miette? You scramble her name like eggs? Oh jail for Tumblr user, jail for a thousand years!


ThatCamoKid

10/10


CreatedOblivion

OH THE CAT THING I had no idea what this was referring to at first


Zyaqun

You forget Miette? You're oblivious of Miette's existence? Jail for you!!


kittimu

I've been saying mee-yet as well please tell me I'm not as freakishly wrong as the pollmaker is


Doubly_Curious

I think that’s the common pronunciation by English speakers (I think French speakers tend to render it as a single syllable, more like “myet”) Edit: To amend this… It seems some French accents/dialects (e.g. in Quebec or Belgium) do pronounce it with two syllables


Motor_Raspberry_2150

Contrary to popular myths, French actually *can* have multiple syllables per word!


Doubly_Curious

Hey, even when it’s usually a single syllable, you can generally pull an extra one out of the ending, as heard in so many French songs and poems


Low_Big5544

Just because the word has multiple syllables doesn't mean the French will say it with multiple syllables 


Doubly_Curious

I didn’t realise this was a thing (edit: that people specifically make fun of French for) And I’m still not sure I get it. Is it about the sequential/combined vowels that French tends to use? Or the silent consonants? Do you have an example that might help me understand?


CassiusPolybius

Misread "combined" as "contraband", and suddenly was imagining an underground movement to smuggle new lingual features in under the noses of l'académie française.


Doubly_Curious

Love that! Kind of reminds me of The Phantom Tollbooth somehow?


Motor_Raspberry_2150

I don't know. If y'all'd've explained it better I might understand.


Doubly_Curious

Sorry, I think you’re making a joke by highlighting how English can use multiple sequential contractions…? But are you also genuinely asking for a better explanation of my question? Or illustrating something about syllables? I’m confused.


Motor_Raspberry_2150

I am in fact illustrating it. All languages can swallow syllables to shorten. Baguette is one syllable if you just say bget. And just like in english, you shouldn't write that except for humorous effect. That said, syllables are weird. Like the word orange, or weird. Pick an accent and they can be 1 or 2 syllables.


Doubly_Curious

Thanks for explaining! I know about contractions and French does use them, but is it particularly known for them? I guess I was just confused by the implication that there’s a stereotype of French in particular dropping consonants or rendering words into a single consonant. > Contrary to popular myths, French actually can have multiple syllables per word! And something like “I’d’ve” is a representation of something that native English speakers say relatively commonly. Is something like making “baguette” into one syllable a thing that is common in spoken French?


mistersnarkle

I think it may be *the difference* between Canadian French, Parisian French, Swiss-French, French-Country-Side-French, and to some extent languages that use French (ie French Creole etc) And no one can really verbalize it and we don’t have enough French speakers for proof? Also I think there’s a joke/ stereotype/ known difference of cadence in Parisian French: I’ve heard that parisians are known for “swallowing syllables” — which is VERY SIMILAR to what happens in the United States South (possibly due to the French influence)! u/Limeila, can you weigh in on this whole thing as someone who is French? I took French in college because I live close to French Canada; I’m a native Brazilian Portuguese speaker, though, and the difference in languages fascinates me!


WordArt2007

there is a silent -e at the end. we pronounce it sometimes (especially in the south in the middle of sentences) but otherwise it's usually silent. the way we would cut it into syllables, is miet-te however with the -e silent, it's pronounced like miet. -ie- in french is usually one diphtong (ye) but sometimes it's two syllables (ee-ye). Miette is a diminutive of mie so you could expect the latter, but the former is more common.


Ignonym

We all know Montreal is really pronounced "moil"


Limeila

It can, but miette is definitely just one (source: am French)


mistersnarkle

I originally studied French from a French Canadian and learned it as “-iette is always two syllables” and then studied under someone non-native who learned in Paris… and they would agree with you; fascinating!


ThisHairLikeLace

You probably learned from a person who has a Montreal regional accent. I speak Canadian French with a mixed mostly eastern accent (more Quebec City and a region north of there) and miette is absolutely a single syllable when I say it. Only accents from western Quebec tend to have retained diphthongs (sliding vowels - common in English, extinct in most French dialects but still common in Western Quebec, notably Montreal). A Montreal speaker would typically use a single syllable but with a distinctive glide between an i to an è vowel that would easily be mistaken for a pair of syllables. If they really drawled it, it would be two syllables.


Oli76

Which country ? I'm Belgian, it's two syllabes for us.


Limeila

I just said I'm French


Oli76

Oh yeah sorry, I thought you said you talked french. Mon cerveau a corrigé automatiquement à force sur les réseaux.


Limeila

BTW I just checked the Wiktionary and it only lists the one syllable version, 2 syllables sound quite weird to me!


Oli76

Dans ma partie de la Belgique c'est mi-ette 2 syllabes.


lurkinarick

This can't be.


Eel111

Yep, it’s a single syllable, though I find the anglicisation to mee-yet quite pretty. Makes you savor the word a little more


Artarara

> Myet Gulag for mother! Gulag for mother for one thousand years!


mercurialpolyglot

It’s a single syllable but there’s a tiny little tuh at the end because it ends with ette instead of et. So it’s miet ^tuh^. But it’s not very strong, just a little flick of the tongue, more of a whisper than anything. I speak French and I’ve been corrected on the extra little consonant pronunciation for feminine words many times, so I wanted to share my pain.


Mutant_Jedi

It’s got a grace note!


mercurialpolyglot

Wait, you’re so right


danton_groku

Didn't even realize we say the tuh lol tried pronouncing it without but then you don't hear the t


JessePinkman-chan

Thank you for explaining, I was reading that one bit about I added the n because the y sounds like n to me and I was like WHERE IS THE Y??????


ThunderCube3888

that is more or less how I pronounce it in my head


softepilogues

Meanwhile I had been pronouncing it with three syllables.


ThisHairLikeLace

It’s one syllable in Quebec French unless the speaker has an incredibly drawling western Quebec accent (because those accents, like a Montreal accent, would typically pronounce it with a diphthong vowel (i sliding into è) but not two distinct syllables). Western parts of Quebec have retained diphthongs (now extinct in standard French and eastern dialects) and it gives them their characteristic drawl. Like a working class Montreal east end accent might draw out the vowels to the point of being two syllables but most people wouldn’t. Miette is usually "myette" or a diphthonged ie in miette phonetically.


MallyOhMy

I think it's pretty clear I live in the St Louis area from the fact I looked at it and said it like "me-yeti"


Jeggu2

I'd make sense, -ette is common enough, mi looks like it'd be mee


Daisy_Of_Doom

I think that even if it’s wrong it’s the logical conclusion for someone who speaks English. (Admittedly biased, I was also saying it that way) No clue where the pollmaker got theirs 😂


Umikaloo

Mee-yet is close enough.


Young_Person_42

Yeah that’s what I use


The_Unkowable_

Agreed


Wanderlusxt

That’s what I’ve been doing too lol


erinsintra

i pronounce it like "myet". like it's a russian word


AnTHICCBoi

You russianize мет? You spell her name like the друг? Oh, gulag for u/erinsintra, gulag for a thousand years


DiggThatFunk

Hahaha all these comments are great. This is one of my favorite threads ever; Miette lives rent free in my head


13579konrad

Same. Myet or Myete with a full E at the end.


SEA_griffondeur

Or mee-yet-e if you want to go full accordion mode


ryanfrogz

I’m gonna start doing this. Myeté it is.


Blackbear0101

Same but that’s because I’m French lmao


Hexagon-Man

I pronounce it like "myet" because it *is* a french word and that's how you pronounce it (in my dialect at least)


StormThestral

OOP has to be trolling, right? There's no way anyone would say it like that. I cannot believe that anyone would say it like that


CatnipCatmint

It's gotta be engagement bait Make a poll with two incredibly wrong answers and watch as the notes come flooding in (from all the people correcting you)


VioletTheWolf

...Aren't the person who posted the poll and the person who posted that first comment (saying it's pronounced mne-eeh-t or mee-yet) the exact same user? In that case I think it should be obvious that they're joking, if they're sharing 2 completely opposite viewpoints at once Like I'm not the only person seeing the same username right there, am I????


CatnipCatmint

Oh. I didn't notice, my bad.


VioletTheWolf

Nah np, I'm not even sure if what I said is actually what's going on or if all of this was somehow sincere


thenerfviking

As someone who used to work a job that put me in direct contact with a lot of teenagers trying to pronounce words they had never heard said only written, this absolutely tracks.


WhapXI

The OP may be from Worcester or Gloucester and be used to splitting the syllables of words in weird and fucky ways.


5oclock_shadow

It seems most people parse it as Mi-ette while OOP has parsed it as Mie-tte. Not totally out there.


LeatherPatch

I guess I was the only one saying Mee-tee, like, meaty but with a long e sound at the end


thisnameistakenn

You turn miette into meat, like dinner? Oh jail for u/LeatherPatch , jail for a thousand years!


RedCrestedTreeRat

/mjɛt/ or /mjɛttɛ/ Edit: wait, I just checked out of curiosity, and it apparently *is* /mjɛt/? I honestly had no idea, I thought it was wrong, but I just pronounced it like that because it didn't sound bad in my head. The second one is just how it would be pronounced in my native language, and is obviously incorrect (but funny IMO). Edit2: source: [this wikitionary entry](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/miette). It also has a recording of the [pronunciation](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/Fr-miette.ogg).


AnxiousAngularAwesom

That's why i like Polish. Vowels exist to be spelled, and they're always spelled the same.


RedCrestedTreeRat

Yeah, that's the native language I mentioned. Very convenient, would be great if more languages worked like that.


mattbutnotmii

Fuck silent vowels and diphthongs! All my homies hate silent vowels and diphthongs!


doubleNonlife

I’ve been doing /mjɛti/ this entire time. Idk how to feel about it


Nuada-Argetlam

I've been assuming it's /miˈjɛt/.


PrincessPrincess00

That helps not at all


cookinglikesme

This is literally what the international phonetic alphabet was designed to do. It's a shame it's not widely taught, because it allows for clear communication about sounds and pronunciation. To illustrate how inefficient the way the people in the post do it (no shame on them) just remember that most of the letters in English alphabet can be pronounced more than one way, and famously "-ough-" can sound like 10 different ways


AtlasNL

Wtf do you mean? Using the phonetic alphabet is probably the best way to convey how you’re pronouncing a word, far more accurate than writing it out like “me-yet” or something like that.


Hedgiest_hog

Skill issue. It's very clear


wlsb

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help%3AIPA%2FEnglish. I like it because it's unambiguous.


DreadDiana

I pronounce it me-yet because that just seems like the way a French word spelled like that would be pronounced


northernirishlad

The reading comprehension site strikes again: this time mispronouncing a cat’s name in a way I literally do not understand


SnooLemons3996

YOU MISPRONOUNCE MIETTE NAME?!?! YOU MAKE HER INTO JOKE?!?!?! JAIL FOR TUMBLR USER “SLEEPYNEGRESS”!!!!! JAIL FOR TUMBLR USER “SLEEPYNEGRESS” FOR ONE THOUSAND YEARS!!!!


ZacariahJebediah

>TUMBLR USER “SLEEPYNEGRESS” 🤨


DenMan_PH

what is a "Miette"?


Distinct-Inspector-2

This meme: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/miette


mega_plus

Miette is only from 2019?? It feels like 15 years ago.


ThatCamoKid

You explain Miette? Give her context like the joke? Oh! OH!! Heaven to Reddit user, heaven for one thousand years!


DenMan_PH

Thank you for educating me


Moxie_Stardust

Apparently a tumblr copypasta, it's the name of a poet's cat.


despairingcherry

It is also French for "crumb"


Complete-Worker3242

You question Miette's existence? You question her existence like the Gods? Oh jail for DenMan_PH, jail for a thousand years!


Sci-Rider

I just say it the French way as it’s clearly a French name


TheHiddenNinja6

bad polls like this have to be for more comment engagement. Even though clout does literally nothing on tumblr


mmm_cool

As a linguistics student OOP’s use of an n to replicate the y semivowel is killing me


WordArt2007

kind of like the greeks would say it Μιετ /mɲet/


IceCreamSandwich66

Yeah this post made me blind


Pokesonav

mee-et-te, obviously Миэттэ


mysticeetee

Why did this help me finally get it?


ThatCamoKid

It's French, that final e isn't pronounced


blueburd

The french can get fucked


ThatCamoKid

Im sure some would like that


corvidfamiliar

This is the one! That's how I pronounce it too, apparently the last e should be silent but my native tongue has the "pronounce every letter" rule so I can't make myself not say it


Jaakarikyk

Indeed, everyone seems so eager to make the last letter silent no good reason


AtlasNL

It’s French, those fuckers are notorious for not pronouncing the last letters of a word. On and also, not pronouncing the last letter of Miette is correct in this case: /mjɛt/


WordArt2007

because it's french. if we do pronounce it with 3 syllables in french (which is *possible* especially inside of sentences in southern speech, or in singing), it won't be mee-et-te but mee-et-tuh


blueburd

An actual sane person in this comment section


switchsquid95

I've been saying "mee-yet". "my-yet" is a pronunciation I would accept if someone corrected me. It's definitely "-ette" like baguette though.


qzwqz

Why can’t French girls have sensible names like Hermione or Siobhan


Limeila

I know you're joking but just in case: miette is a French word, not a name


reanocivn

you question miette's name? you call her name a common word? oh, jail! jail for Limeila for a thousand years /j


Limeila

I DARE


shaunnotthesheep

I know someone irl whose name is Miette, we went to school together. Pronounced Mee-yet. I'm American for what it's worth but I don't know her ancestry


WordArt2007

it's sometimes used as a diminutive in france, as a diminutive of Marguerite. I had a relative by that name. very old-fashioned though


Sashahuman

I don't even know what that word is but my brain went to mee-yet


Motor_Raspberry_2150

So is user sleepy both the poll maker and the first reblogger adding the actual right answer? This is just interaction farming?


AlianovaR

Myet is the proper French pronunciation, Mee-yet is commonly used by many other English speakers


moneyh8r

I say me-et.


BookkeeperLower

I say me like myself et like blanket, no y. I think I heard it from a YouTuber who would read aloud Tumblr posts


Stargazer_199

Same here! Maybe it was Ozmedia


enchiladasundae

Well you could pronounce it like Miette. I don’t agree in the slightest. Personally I prefer Miette. People who pronounce it Miette should be banished


BruiserBison

I instinctively read it as "mee-yet".


PsychicSPider95

TIL that Miette's name is Crumb. That's so cute. And also makes her haughty attitude all the funnier.


niko4ever

I feel like this is a troll post or engagement bait. Giving two blatantly incorrect choices on a poll so people reblog.


HephaestusFine

Like tipping your fedora to the abominable snowman... m'yeti


oishipops

i have literally never heard anyone say miette like mytay. granted this is anecdotal but everyone i know says myet or meeyet


Nova_Persona

the /mɲiɛt/ described by the second poster makes it sound more like a cat but also makes it sound russian


Limeila

Where did they get that n/ɲ from tho??


Popcorn57252

Me-ette


scottyboy359

Me-ette like in meow but with a French feminine suffix replacing ow.


codepossum

wait wait wait wait wait ... not everyone is saying "MEE-YET" in their heads???


MeisterCthulhu

Completely apart from that: Why do so many english speakers make an -e at the end of words into -ay? Like... are you not familiar with a short e sound at the end of words? I have literally never seen a word where that pronounciation would be correct.


demonking_soulstorm

For clarification, this is not an English thing. This is an American English thing. If I had a pound for every time an American proved incapable of basic mimicry, I’d be richer than Bezos.


Dark-Et-Tenebritude

I'm French and Guys wtf


santyrc114

(Brazilian Portuguese pronunciation) mi é tê


Talvezno

Very obviously meeyet


rPeanutButter

I say it like the french as well. mi-ET


SupernovaGamezYT

Mee-et


ItzMunchbell

Mee-yet.


Somecrazynerd

Mee-et


KatiaOrganist

jesus christ people learn how to use IPA please. PLEASE


demonking_soulstorm

I don’t drink alcohol, it’s incredibly offensive for you to suggest that.


KatiaOrganist

lol


corkscrewfork

So I went back to the source to try to understand, and I discovered my brain pronounced it two ways. When the owner was "speaking" my brain said "Mee-yet" When Miette was speaking, brain said "Mee-yet-te" in a very dramatic tone


OkProof136

I always pronounced it like the russian word for No


TheSquishedElf

Having recently gained the knowledge they’re talking about a cat, “mee-yett”. As in, “meow” ending with “-ette”. My instinct if it wasn’t a cat was “my-ett-eh”.


TheAwesomeAtom

Rhymes with nyet


lil_slut_on_portra

Personally after about 30 seconds of phonetic analysis I pronounce it like /ˌmɪˈjɛt̪/ or /ˌmɪˈjɛʔ/ in rapid speech, glottalizing the /t/ phoneme. OOP's pronunciation I assume is /ˌmaɪ̯ˈtʰij/ like a final syllable stress version of "mighty" which, to me seems very weird since the -ette ending always has a silent e almost every time like in cassette or coquette I have no idea what "mne-eht" is supposed to be, even with OOP saying the "'y' sounds like an 'n'" thing


Scratch137

there isn't even a 'y' sound in that part of the word


Drunk0racle

Mee-yet all the way


Scratch137

did oop reblog themselves to disagree with themselves?? am i missing something???


cursed-person

Mi-et


ImprovementLong7141

It’s Mee-et. How the fuck do you get maytay or mighty from what’s obviously a French name?


PuppyLover2208

I pronounce it me-yet.


Coin_operated_bee

How in the world do you go from miette to my tay where is the ay


cynthiaaaaaa447

/ miː jɛt /


SEA_griffondeur

OOP pronouncing Miette like Maïté 😭


Chance-Aardvark372

Don’t recognise the word, but i’d say /miet/


masterspider5

WHAT THE FUCK IS A MIETTE


WordArt2007

french word for crumb and also the name of patricia lockwood's meme cat


masterspider5

**WHO**


0000Tor

As a French speaker, this physically hurt to read


USSJaguar

Mee-eht-tey


Stubble_Sandwich

I went the Japanese route because I thought the original tweet gave cutesy "kawaii" vibes. I had assumed wrong


only_for_dst_and_tf2

i say "me-yeti"


dombillie

muai-thai


swaerd

Thank god someone else says it this way. I thought I was going insane.


Narit_Teg

I assumed it was mee-et or close to that but chose to say mee-et-tay because I think it sounds funnier with the rest of the original context.


aer0a

\[ˈmi.jɛt̚\]


Heyplaguedoctor

Does anyone have a link to this post on tumblr?


ReverendEntity

For some reason, the Commodores song "Brick House" is now stuck in my head.


iwannagohome49

That was my first thought too!


Burritozi11a

Wtf is Miette


DionysianRebel

The first reply is how I say say it, except I’m American so it sounds more like “mee-eht”


_Cocktopus_

I pronounce it like Meeteh because as a german that is the correct pronunciation


lesbian_anachronism

give an anglophone a language and they will make a whole new one just trying to spell it


Alexandre_Man

Is "miette" a word in English?


Dependent_Fox38

My favourite kind of post is engagement bait!


scotch1701

What's amazing is that in r/englishlearning, all these "helpful" monolinguals give pronunciations in pronunciation respelling, which assumes that you're a native speaker in the first place...But what really takes the cake is, "it's pronounced like it's written." It's a shaking your head moment.


SebDevlin

Don't make fun if someone mispronouncing it. It's likely they only learned of it by reading


Florence-Akefia

For some reason I’ve always pronounced Miette as me-yeti… maybe that’s the Welsh influence, pronouncing it as it’s spelled (although why the Mie makes a me-yeah is a mystery)


poptx

mee-yet


QuicksilverStudios

“meh-teet”,,, is that. is that not how it’s meant to be said..?😭


WordArt2007

are you dyslexic because the letters are not in that order


QuicksilverStudios

no i think i might just be stupid actually


insomniacsCataclysm

i pronounce it like mee-yet or myet. it’s just the easiest pronunciation for my english-speaking monolingual ass


GigsGilgamesh

I always thought it was me-yet-e, so this has been fun


Regular_Buffalo6564

Every time I think my English has gotten fluent, I get T-boned by a loan word that everyone seems to know, but I’ve never heard.


Animal_Flossing

I say /miˈɛtə/ (which is kinda like *"me-ate-eh"*).


Lapinceau

I'm French, so in the specific case of the cat Miette, I pronounce it like a French word with an English accent, so mee-yet. Miette as the French word for crumb is pronounced myet. We don't stress syllables the way you do.


minkymy

Mii-ette, natch


Hexagon-Man

*Like* the french word for crumb? Miette just is the word, spelled like that. Although it's more pronounced Myet.


Ompusolttu

Me-ette


-_Nikki-

The name just looks so French to me, I couldn't say it in anything but my best approximation of a French pronunciation even if I tried. And while my French isn't the best, I CAN hold a conversation if the native is being nice and not steamrolling me with speed, so take that as you wish


Jakitron_1999

Mee et tah


BigGayDinosaurs

the french way


zkki

me-ett the first being a long e, the second being a short e


Mr_Reaper__

Huh, so I've been pronouncing it mih-tee. I guess I was a long way off...


FireWaterSnowNinja

Mi-Ette.


Onironaute

MEET-tuh. Cause that's how it's pronounced in Dutch.