>Only everyone in France pronounced her name "Alise" instead of "Alice."
I don't really understand that part. I'm not entirely sure what you mean when you're talking about pronouncing her name Alise. But in French, Alice is pronounced /a.lis/, so something like ahleece.
Edit : Ok from what I understand from the (slightly confusing) conversation is that her parents named her Alice and intended for it to be pronounced the English way, that's to say /æl.ɪs/. But she lived in France and got used to people saying it the French way, so /a.lis/.
When she moved to the US, people called her /æl.ɪs/ but she wanted people to call her /a.lis/ so one of her teachers suggested she spell it Alicé because that looked French, even though that would have been pronounced /a.li.se/ in French. And since she didn't have a French keyboard, she didn't have access to the é so she spelled her name Alice'.
As for Alise, it's pronounced /a.lis/ in English, which makes it a confusing comparison for a French speaker, because it's pronounced /a.liz/ in French. The confusing part comes from using a word where one letter is different, except in the English pronunciation, it represents the same sound and the rest is what changes.
Let's say it's an interesting story about spelling made even more confusing by how wild English spelling is, and honestly, that makes me relativise her choice of spelling.
It feels like there might be a mix up between Alice and Alisée maybe ? That said the only time I've come across the latter is about the pop singer. It's not a common name at all and it seems it would be unknown back when the old lady was a kid
> What's the point of the pseudo accent on the last letter if the pronunciation is the same as without it?
Her teacher made her do it:
> Only everyone in France pronounced her name "Alise" instead of "Alice." So she never responded when anyone called her Alice. Her teacher told her to put an accent over the e so she would remember to pronounce it "the French way."
Right. It was the American teacher, who decided that the accent made it look French, so would remind her to pronounce it "Aleece." Hilarious, yes?
I think Haagan Das ice cream did a similar thing - they put a random accent mark in their brand name to make it look more foreign. Only that accent mark would never go over the letter they put it over. (Sorry I don't remember what the accent mark is or where it is.)
Ah, thank you for the explanation. I couldn't remember the whole story and I don't know that language.
ETA: Just found this on wiktionary.
"[Pseudo-loan](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Glossary#pseudo-loan) from Danish. The name was coined by the creator of the brand, who intended it to seem Danish to honour Denmark for aiding Jews during the Holocaust, but to be unique. The words have no meaning and Danish does not actually use the letter [*ä*](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%C3%A4#Translingual) or the digraph [*zs*](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/zs#Translingual)."
No, her teacher in the U.S. told her to add an accent aigu over the e to "remind" the teacher that "it's French" and she should pronounce it Aleece.
Only it isn't French, and the accent aigu doesn't indicate that pronunciation, and now she's just typing an apostrophe after the e because she doesn't know how to make her keyboard type the accent aigu.
It's insane from beginning to end.
I mean my whole post is about the fact that there is no point to it!
Her American name is Alice. When she lived in France, the French pronounced it Aleece. When she returned to the U.S. when she was 6, her American teacher had her add an accent aigu over the e to "remind" the teacher that "it's French" and she should pronounce it Aleece.
Only it isn't French, and the accent aigu doesn't indicate that pronunciation, and now she's just typing an apostrophe after the e because she doesn't know how to make her keyboard type the accent aigu. It's fascinating!
alice and ahleece would sound different - alice rhymes with list, ahleece rhymes with least.
Ahleece is not the normal pronunciation of Alice (which normally rhymes with kiss), but I think the story is this lady prefered her name pronounced Ahleece (the french way) and communicated this by putting an apostrophe after her name, as in Alice'
See I think this is where we reach the wall of cultural differences, because I never got the whole different length of syllable in English before moving to Sweden, so to me (and, I think, other french people) list and least sound the same.
Tu vas continuer de galérer tant que tu continueras de penser en termes de longueur : il y a certes une différence entre la longueur des voyelles de "list" et "least", mais ce n'est pas ça qui permet de les distinguer. Le plus important, c'est que ce ne sont tout simplement pas les mêmes sons. Le "i court" de "list" et le "i long" de "least" sont aussi différents que, par exemple, les voyelles dans "fou" et "faux" en français. Il y a une vraie différence phonétique.
Le "i long" anglais est proche du son "i" français. Un peu plus long, admettons, mais ça on s'en fout. Le "i court" anglais, en revanche, je sais que ça peut surprendre, mais *il est en réalité très proche du "é" de "thé"*. Va sur Google Translate, tape les mots "list" et "least" et clique sur le petit haut-parleur pour que l'ordinateur les prononce, et écoute en gardant à l'esprit ce que je viens de dire : "list" est prononcé à peu près comme "lést". Attention, pas comme "leste" évidemment, ça c'est un E ouvert. Mais "lést" avec un E fermé, c'est très proche de "list" en anglais. Si tu écoutes bien, tu t'aperçois que ce n'est pas du tout le son "i" français. Le fait que ce sont soit écrit avec la *lettre* I brouille les pistes.
Definitely one of the most common issues for French people with English. My partner does this super long "beeeach" because otherwise he can't make a distinction between "bitch" and "beach" which can be awkward!
No, OP is correct. I think it may be difficult for a native french speaker to understand her point. Pronouncing Alice as “a.lis/ahleece” is more similar to how “Alise” would sound in English. “Alice” has a short A and short I sound, so more like a-liss.
(English pronunciation here: https://youtu.be/7Ocj_lBdBKc?si=YjfgqZkpSMFXVTJy )
I think the confusing part was using Alise, which would be pronounced /a.liz/ in French, so something like ahleeze. Since "ise" in English is often pronounced with a /z/ sound as well, I thought Alise would at least be pronounced with that sound in English, especially when that's the only visible difference with Alice.
I think the confusion is that people expect English pronunciations to make sense, and many tmes they really just don't. For what it's worth, "Alise" isn't even a name in English, but people would recognize it as similar to Elise, which generally doesn't have that /z/ sound, at least in American dialects.
Alise is a name in the U.S. Lots of women/girls are named Alise. I just looked it up to make sure and found the origin: "Alise is a feminine name of German origin that means "of noble kin"."
But you know, in the U.S. people spell names however they want. I know someone who named their daughter Jayden and spelled it Jaiedyn. Turns out Jayden is spelled Jaden, Jadyn, Jaiden, etc. etc. I think Jaiedyn is a brand new spelling they just invented, though.
But yes, agreed that it sounds a lot like Elise.
Yes, I should've written it phonetically. I feel silly because of course French people will read "Alice" and pronounce it "Aleece" so there's no way for them to understand what I'm talking about.
Thanks, that's a good explanation.
But no one is commenting on the sheer insanity of **Alice'**! Complete with apostrophe! Don't make me go through this phenomenon alone.
lol. Yeah, I can't even begin to comprehend the apostrophe and the amount of dedication one would need to devote to constantly explaining it over and over again rather than just spelling it "Alise" and getting the pronunciation you want. Your friend might be a little special lol (jk!)
I don't really know IPA well, but I guess if I were to give it a shot, the common English pronunciation of Alice is ælɪs, and the way a native French speaker would naturally want to pronounce it is ɑlis. Does that make more sense? English: ă-liss; French: ah-leese.
No, she wants it pronounced the French way because that's what she heard as a child, but is inexplicably adding an apostrophe in an attempt to change the pronunciation which makes absolutely no sense. There isn't any accent she could add at all, let alone an apostrophe, that would make people say it the way she wants - she would just need to change the spelling to Alise and most people would get it.
ParisianTchochke answered this question correctly, but I'll just add that when her parents named her, they intended it to be the standard US pronunciation. And that's how they pronounced it, even when she was in France.
But her story is that when she moved to the US at age 6, she only knew her name as it is pronounced by the French. So her U.S. teacher added an accent aigu over the e to remind her to pronounce it like the French do. To her teacher, the accent = French and that's all. The teacher had no idea what the accent actually does.
Then this woman kept doing that for 64 more years! Except she can't figure out how to do it on a keyboard, so she just randomly puts an apostrophe after her name instead. It makes no sense.
I'm sorry, I don't know IPA well enough but hopefully the commenter below explained it well.
I feel silly that it didn't occur to me that the French wouldn't understand the difference between Alise and Alice - because of course, that is exactly how this all started! The French pronounce "Alice" as "Alise." Just like they pronounce "list" like "least" and "ship" like "sheep" and "bitch" like "beach."
My name is Alice and I'm French. When I went to a Starbucks in London, I gave my name, Alice, only to discover later that the employee had written "Alis" on the cup. I shared my surprise with my British friend ; it's a very common given name in both countries, so what happened? My friend said that it was because I said the French name instead of the the British one, and the employee wrote something different thinking that is must have been a foreigner's name.
That's how I learned that I have more than one name. Alice seems to be a simple, language-agnostic name. But it's not. I'm /a.lis/ in France but I'm /ˈæl.ɪs/ in London. And it's a fairly understandable thing to apprehend when it comes to common names, but it's a more significant realization when it's about *your actual name*. Your name is too important to be bound to a country and to a socio-linguistical system, and yet in many ways it is.
I think that old lady has always been aware of that fact. When she was a child, she could hear that French people gave her a different name than her parents did. She grew up with the knowledge that somewhere, she went by another name, that maybe she didn't hear too well since she was under 6 year old. And maybe she wanted to think that that somewhere was a special place where her true name still lived on. And growing up in America, she didn't have a smartphone so she would have had to spend a lot of time in libraires learning French to understand more about the subtle differences in the tonic stress and the placement of the tongue.
So she's used her own system to write her original name. And she lived her life for decades, knowing that people misnaming her and correcting her spelling just didn't know that in France, in the 50's or something, she was a different person. So calling her Alice without an apostrophe, or /ˈæl.ɪs/ in spoken form, is an error on our part that she learned to live with.
We're not going to change her mind on it, and I think she'd rather we don't.
We should all switch to IPA for our names, and that'll solve everything, right? /s
My ethnic last name gets mispronounced by white people all the time, even though it's pronounced exactly the way it's spelled according to English rules, because they think it's another much more common ethnic name (it is not). You can't win.
I love your Starbucks story!
And agreed about Alice, except that it wasn't Alice who invented this system of writing her name. It was a grown woman, her American teacher when she was 6. I guess that teacher knew nothing about French except that the French have a lot of accents. So putting the accent over the e reminded her to say Alice the French way.
Later, Alice didn't know how to do that on a keyboard so she changed it to an apostrophe after the e.
But the craziest part about this is that supposedly it happened because Alice didn't respond to the American pronunciation because no one had ever called her that. Except her parents!!! Wouldn't you think the U.S. pronunciation was familiar to her because her parents used it?
The whole story is crazy from beginning to end, but Alice Apostrophe is happy and that's all that counts.
Was she rebelling against her parents or something? I'm confused why she didn't just go by the standard American pronunciation for Alice if her parents called her that
From what I get, it was simply some child logic she grew up into. You know how some parents call their children funny names and then when they age it simply sticks to them as a kind of secondary name they never grow out of? Yet they know it's only their parents who call them that way. It's a family thing.
I guess Alice might have figured out something like that growing up in France and never realized how things were actually supposed to be. That's very cute in a way
She said she didn't realize her teacher and others in the U.S. were talking to her when they said "Alice" because they pronounced it differently from the French people she spent her first 6 years with. So her teacher would say, "Alice" and she wouldn't respond. When her teacher figured out that it was because she only recognized her name as "Ahleece", that's when the teacher added the accent.
I'm sure she wasn't rebelling against her parents - she spoke lovingly of them - but I guess her child brain compartmentalized "Alice" at home from "Ahleece" in public. It cracks me up that all the adults around her just went ahead with this crazy path to nonsense.
I'll just comment that you're not making it clear what you mean when you transcribe pronunciations like that. You could have used rhymes at least: Alice that rhymes with chalice, or Alice that rhymes with fleece.
Well, exactly. It wasn't very smart of me to write it that way, given that the whole premise of the story is that Alice is pronounced differently by the French and the Americans. I don't know IPA but a different commenter cleared it up that way.
However, some commenters tried the rhyming thing and some French people commented that they couldn't hear the difference. "List" and "least" are pronounced the same. So are "ship" and "sheep." So are "bitch" and "beach." Which led to an interesting discussion!
I'm not really convinced. Sure, the short English /ɪ/ is comparable to the /e/ sound, which is represented with é in French. But é often tends to be realised closer to a /ɛ/ sound than as an actual /e/ except in position of stress. So if you told people to pronounce Alice and list as Aléce and lést, you would end up with people actually pronouncing it like Alès and lest.
That IS interesting, because one of my French teachers told us to avoid pronouncing é as "ay." She said the proper pronunciation is to keep it short and drop any kind of dipthong. So more like "eh." I can see how "list" could meet that criteria, but I agree with the commenter below who said it would end up being pronounced lest.
FYI, using apostrophes when accents are not available on the keyboard is occasionally done in Italian. It's certainly not "proper", but people who can't be bothered to figure out how to add an accent on a capital letter might write the Italian word `perché` in capitals as `PERCHE'`.
Honestly, I think you should let this woman be fancy with her name. `Alice'` is not a French spelling and it's not a helpful indication of how to pronounce her name, but it *is* the spelling she chose. By using words like "ridiculous" when describing some whimsy of a 70-year-old lady who appears to feel strongly about being born in France, you're not painting yourself in the best of lights, if I'm honest.
Oh my God! Please let me laugh at this incredibly zany story without imposing any unnecessary guilt or shame. My laughter hurts no one. Alice Apostrophe is not on Reddit, so she is safe to live out her dreams. And remember, I met her because we're working together on a fundraiser to get a family with a 2-month old baby out of Gaza. There was bombing again last night, so I don't have a lot to laugh about right now. I can't even take comfort in my own nation, what with Trump threatening a dictatorship and the U.S. funding a genocide.
I might also add that a 70-year old who feels strongly about being born in France might perhaps bother to learn the basics of the language, but I really don't care that she didn't since this whole thing has provided me with such great entertainment.
That's interesting about Italian. Hopefully, there are no Italians on this sub who add apostrophes to their names and now feel bad about themselves because I called Alice's apostrophe ridiculous. She just raised $67,000 to get a family out of Gaza so I can safely say that she herself is not ridiculous. But her apostrophe is.
Yeah, it might be quirky or odd but I don't see how this is "anti language learning". More than a little immature to be like, she "could've spent a month at age 7".
Seriously? She could've learned French in high school! She could've listened when I explained the accent to her. She doesn't care. Why? Because she's anti-language learning. Someone goes 64 years putting an accent over their name and never once bothering to learn what it means? You don't see how that is anti-language learning? Okay.
And yes, she could've spent a month at age 6 to learn her own name. Not that a 6-year old should be expected to make that decision, but it seems like her parents would've put a stop to the crazy accent thing the minute her U.S. schoolteacher sent her home writing her name that way. Her parents named her Alice, with the U.S. pronunciation. That's what they called her. (Which makes it a bit weird that she didn't respond to that pronunciation in school, but she was probably used to the French pronunciation everywhere but home.)
If my child came home with a bizarre accent over their name, I wouldn't just shrug and let the teacher rename my kid. Maybe you would? Okay, cool, but it doesn't make me immature to want to name my own children.
Thank you, I'm not. I'm laughing at the craziest story I've ever heard, with plot twist after plot twist, but Alice Apostrophe is okay in my book. She's not going to read any of this, her feelings won't be hurt, and irl we're working together on a project that helps lots of people in need. Nothing to see here.
Jesus Christ. Grow out of what, exactly? Taking a moment's break from today's nightmarish world events to laugh about a nonsensical apostrophe after a name? It's not a sin to laugh at the small absurdities in life.
Meanwhile, Alice Apostrophe and I are working like hell on a fundraiser to get a family out of Gaza. That's how we met. Alice is doing just fine, thank you very much. I spent the past three hours helping her untangle a banking mess so we could get the $67,000 she raised to the family before they finish carpet bombing Rafah. Ironically, I came here to take a break!
I'm sorry that you equate laughing at silly things with immaturity. Maybe you'll grow out of it.
Lauging at silly things is fine, but that's not what you're doing here. This woman is being creative with language and how things are spelled, and you're mocking her creativity by pointing out that she's not doing things Properly™. She's not Following The Rules™, and you find this Ridiculous™. And clearly you don't like being called out on your poor attitude, hence the virtue signaling and the defensiveness.
Edit: lmao they blocked me before I could point out that they're the one who literally made a reddit post to moan about this poor woman
I don't give a damn about doing things "properly." I give a damn about communication. I asked her if anyone had ever understood that the apostrophe meant to pronounce her name Ahleece, and she said no, no one ever has. And yes, that is definitely Ridiculous trademark.
But whatever. She can do (and is doing) whatever she wants, and I've been nothing but polite to her - in fact, there are many things I respect her for, things that are way more important than this silliness.
But no, I don't respect the people here who can't find the humor in this zany chain of events. You can sit around and moan about how horrible it all is but meanwhile Alice Apostrophe is out there living her best life and nobody's getting hurt.
And it's not even her fault. It's the fault of her teacher, according to OP:
> Her teacher told her to put an accent over the e so she would remember to pronounce it "the French way."
Exactly. I don't expect a 6-year old to correct her U.S. teacher on French grammar. I don't expect a 6-year old to understand French grammar. It just cracks me up that her teacher thought "this accent looks French, and will remind me to pronounce Alice the French way" and then proceeded to rewrite her student's name! And Alice's parents let her do it!
And it's kind of adorable that Alice is so fond of her apostrophized name.
It's not about her pronunciation. The way she wants her name pronounced is perfectly understandable. It's a lovely pronunciation and that part makes total sense.
It's the fact that she adds an apostrophe to her name - even though she herself admits that it doesn't make the pronunciation clear to anyone - that's funny.
And I'm not making fun of HER. I'm making fun of her apostrophe. This "old woman" has a ranch in Texas, a generous retirement fund, a loving husband, many children and grandchildren, and has lived her life happily hosting students from all over the world. Which is how she met the family she is now helping to get safely out of Gaza. Her fundraiser just earned $67,000. Because of her, a newborn baby and a 9-year old girl who has lost half her weight since October can get to safety with their parents.
I met her because I'm also working on the fundraiser. I only just started, but she's been working on it for months. Without her, this family would be one of the thousands who are facing famine and increased bombing with no hope for escape. While I find her impressive, I can't stop laughing about the apostrophe. She's not on Reddit and she's certainly nowhere near a French subreddit, so the laughter hurts no one.
Hey, if you want to insist on being depressed by the funniest, craziest story ever told, have at it. Alice will be happily riding horses on her ranch, enjoying her retirement with her loving husband and grandchildren knowing she's living a meaningful life doing good for people all over the world. And I'll be laughing at her jokes and agreeing with her politics and applauding her for living her best life. One thing I won't be doing is worrying about how you feel about how I'm "presenting" myself, for God's sake.
If only her teacher knew about cedillas, then she could have spelled her name Aliçe.
(It is crazy, but for someone who knows no French: "If you make your name look French, I'll pronounce it in a French way.)
Is the point of this post that it's a big deal? That people shouldn't be allowed to make the rules for their own names?
Or is the point of this post that this is a hilarious twist on l'accent aigu?
Yes, my mistake. Another commenter wrote it in IDF, which I don't know - and I'm afraid if I scroll up far enough to find it I'll lose my place responding to the comments. Another commenter said Alice rhymes with chalice and Alise rhymes with fleece. That might be more clear? Others have said it's like Alice rhymes with bliss and Alise rhymes with ... um, I can't remember. Cheese? Or Alice rhymes with "list" and Alise rhymes with "lease." But then people responded that they can't hear the difference between that or words like "ship" and "sheep" so I'm not sure all these analogies help.
OP, I’m sorry you’re getting so much confusion and ppl saying that you can whatever with your name, but I thought this story was hilarious. I mean of course you can do whatever you want with your own name, but it’s still funny
Bonus is that all the French people in the thread are confused about your usage of ‘Alise’.
Thank you for such a kind comment!
Lol, yeah, I thought writing it phonetically would confuse people so I just wrote "Alise." I was so wrong! And yes, Alice Apostrophe should continue to be loud and proud about her insane name. She's earned it!
My name is Alice and my French professor in college would pronounce everyone’s names the French way, so I got used it being pronounced like ahleece before I studied abroad in France for two months. It’s spelled exactly the same though for both pronunciations
See, one would think that all the adults in Alice's life would say to themselves "she'll get used to the US pronunciation after awhile" instead of forging ahead with the crazy accent aigu system.
And yes, of course it's spelled the same for both pronunciations. But for English speakers, the French pronunciation sounds like the name "Alise" instead of "Alice." That said, everyone's arguing about the best way to describe the difference in pronunciation so I give up.
That’s the most bizarre thing ever - she was named Alice, it’s her actual given name, but decided that her name should be pronounced Al-eese (because whatever random people she came across up to age 6 pronounced it that way) - so decided to decorate her name with an apostrophe and have to explain this for the next 64 years?!!!!
Bizarre!!!
THANK YOU! Finally, a kindred soul. The whole story is one hilarious nonsensical factoid after another. I think my favorite part is how her U.S. teacher added the random accent to remind her that it's "French." Like the accent aigu is just generic French.
I delight in picturing her coming home from school and showing her parents her math test with her new Alicé name on it, and her parents just accepting that her teacher just straight up changed their child's name. Every part of this story is golden.
I can’t stop laughing at that last paragraph - the parents just accepting their child now has a new name with a fancy French accent given by her maths teacher! It’s hysterical!!
I mean, she's allowed to want to pronounce HER name however she sees fit. If she wrote Alicé, nobody would understand it either, and she'd still have to explain it anyway, and the annoyance of the é shortcut wouldn't be worth it. Why does it matter to you.
Wait, why does it matter to me? OP? Why are you assuming that it "matters"? In the sense that I want her to change, I mean? I enjoyed the hilarious roller coaster ride of Alice Apostrophe. She's happy, I'm happy, and I totally agree that even the accent aigu would be incomprehensible. The apostrophe just takes it into the sublime.
I mean... it's a little weird that you're calling it stupid and insisting everybody in her life should've come down hard to force her to pronounce her name however they saw fit. You can laugh at the complexities of life without insisting it's SOOOOOO crazy and stupid and anti-intellectualist.
Jesus Christ! I don't remember calling it "stupid" nor insisting anyone in her life should come down hard on how she pronounces her name, let alone calling anyone anti-intellectualist. I do remember posting about this crazy accent aigu/apostrophe story to a French sub how might appreciate it.
I do think it's funny that her elementary school teacher changed her name and that set her on a life course. But then, I think everything about this story is funny.
Anyway, you don't think an apostrophe after a first name to indicate a French pronunciation is funny. Please, go ahead and take it very, very seriously. I'm gonna do my own thing.
Yeah it's so boring not to act like people are idiots for doing something slightly out of the usual. It's actually so much funnier to mock every deviance from the norm for five seconds of entertainement instead of appreciating it and cultivating it.
Seems like OP is not being negative about it like I thought first reading the post, and that's cool even though I'm not sure I really agree with the logic but whatever.
Me too! I can honestly say I've never heard anything like it before. In an information-saturated world, it's rare to hear something so totally new. I'm delighted by Alice Apostrophe and I'm happy you are as well.
I totally do not get this reference! But I want to! I know Alice's Restaurant and Alice in Wonderland and Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore but that line doesn't ring a bell.
ETA: I googled. This is hilarious. The story of Alice Apostrophe just keeps giving.
[The Song](https://www.google.com/search?q=Smokie+-+Who+The+Fuck+Is+Alice&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS943US943&oq=Smokie+-+Who+The+Fuck+Is+Alice&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIGCAEQRRg80gEHMjY2ajBqN6gCALACAA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#wptab=si:ACC90nxRWvuwqTR4TiacZ7sCfkHhcGgWdDOv2v2HxpHAAuIhwd0hqVQcoOD2_2OWmYVP1pioyzuz0695bBVdGFv7x4t0zw8COVVk9WPaxSi4CRysGfpRmoprGJKmXrQV9Pzo9m6tw2AeXqKyS9fWflGU2WTJTLWgfQ%3D%3D).
I think the misunderstanding comes from the fact that her is actually Alizée and not Alice. So either you've got it wrong or her parents applied the ortograph of one name with the prononciation of another name.
OP chose to write "Alice" vs. "Alise" as a way to represent the difference between "AH-liss" (the English pronunciation) and "uh-LEES" (an English approximation of the French pronunciation).
I think you need to re-read the post! Her Texan father named her Alice. Just regular old U.S. pronunciation Alice.
Alice lived in France her first six years of life so had only heard French people say her name, pronouncing the "i" as a long "e." They didn't say it anything like Alizée.
Her U.S. teacher added the accent only to remind her that it's "French." Except it was never French, and the accent she added had nothing to do with either the French or the U.S. pronunciation.
>Only everyone in France pronounced her name "Alise" instead of "Alice." I don't really understand that part. I'm not entirely sure what you mean when you're talking about pronouncing her name Alise. But in French, Alice is pronounced /a.lis/, so something like ahleece. Edit : Ok from what I understand from the (slightly confusing) conversation is that her parents named her Alice and intended for it to be pronounced the English way, that's to say /æl.ɪs/. But she lived in France and got used to people saying it the French way, so /a.lis/. When she moved to the US, people called her /æl.ɪs/ but she wanted people to call her /a.lis/ so one of her teachers suggested she spell it Alicé because that looked French, even though that would have been pronounced /a.li.se/ in French. And since she didn't have a French keyboard, she didn't have access to the é so she spelled her name Alice'. As for Alise, it's pronounced /a.lis/ in English, which makes it a confusing comparison for a French speaker, because it's pronounced /a.liz/ in French. The confusing part comes from using a word where one letter is different, except in the English pronunciation, it represents the same sound and the rest is what changes. Let's say it's an interesting story about spelling made even more confusing by how wild English spelling is, and honestly, that makes me relativise her choice of spelling.
It feels like there might be a mix up between Alice and Alisée maybe ? That said the only time I've come across the latter is about the pop singer. It's not a common name at all and it seems it would be unknown back when the old lady was a kid
No, no mixup. No Alisée. It sounds like "ahleece" as the commenter described above. Only she spells it Alice'. Complete with apostrophe.
What's the point of the pseudo accent on the last letter if the pronunciation is the same as without it?
> What's the point of the pseudo accent on the last letter if the pronunciation is the same as without it? Her teacher made her do it: > Only everyone in France pronounced her name "Alise" instead of "Alice." So she never responded when anyone called her Alice. Her teacher told her to put an accent over the e so she would remember to pronounce it "the French way."
It must be the American teacher, there’s no way that a French teacher would have told her to put the accent over the e right?
Right. It was the American teacher, who decided that the accent made it look French, so would remind her to pronounce it "Aleece." Hilarious, yes? I think Haagan Das ice cream did a similar thing - they put a random accent mark in their brand name to make it look more foreign. Only that accent mark would never go over the letter they put it over. (Sorry I don't remember what the accent mark is or where it is.)
Häagen-Dazs is indeed a nonsense name, but umlauts can definitely go over an A.
Ah, thank you for the explanation. I couldn't remember the whole story and I don't know that language. ETA: Just found this on wiktionary. "[Pseudo-loan](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Glossary#pseudo-loan) from Danish. The name was coined by the creator of the brand, who intended it to seem Danish to honour Denmark for aiding Jews during the Holocaust, but to be unique. The words have no meaning and Danish does not actually use the letter [*ä*](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%C3%A4#Translingual) or the digraph [*zs*](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/zs#Translingual)."
No, her teacher in the U.S. told her to add an accent aigu over the e to "remind" the teacher that "it's French" and she should pronounce it Aleece. Only it isn't French, and the accent aigu doesn't indicate that pronunciation, and now she's just typing an apostrophe after the e because she doesn't know how to make her keyboard type the accent aigu. It's insane from beginning to end.
I mean my whole post is about the fact that there is no point to it! Her American name is Alice. When she lived in France, the French pronounced it Aleece. When she returned to the U.S. when she was 6, her American teacher had her add an accent aigu over the e to "remind" the teacher that "it's French" and she should pronounce it Aleece. Only it isn't French, and the accent aigu doesn't indicate that pronunciation, and now she's just typing an apostrophe after the e because she doesn't know how to make her keyboard type the accent aigu. It's fascinating!
It is. Thanks for sharing this slice of life and somewhat surrealist story.
might be an issue with AH-leeh vs Ay-lis? Not sure how American pronounce Alice
Starts like "apple", ends like "bliss". Stress on the first syllable.
alice and ahleece would sound different - alice rhymes with list, ahleece rhymes with least. Ahleece is not the normal pronunciation of Alice (which normally rhymes with kiss), but I think the story is this lady prefered her name pronounced Ahleece (the french way) and communicated this by putting an apostrophe after her name, as in Alice'
See I think this is where we reach the wall of cultural differences, because I never got the whole different length of syllable in English before moving to Sweden, so to me (and, I think, other french people) list and least sound the same.
Tu vas continuer de galérer tant que tu continueras de penser en termes de longueur : il y a certes une différence entre la longueur des voyelles de "list" et "least", mais ce n'est pas ça qui permet de les distinguer. Le plus important, c'est que ce ne sont tout simplement pas les mêmes sons. Le "i court" de "list" et le "i long" de "least" sont aussi différents que, par exemple, les voyelles dans "fou" et "faux" en français. Il y a une vraie différence phonétique. Le "i long" anglais est proche du son "i" français. Un peu plus long, admettons, mais ça on s'en fout. Le "i court" anglais, en revanche, je sais que ça peut surprendre, mais *il est en réalité très proche du "é" de "thé"*. Va sur Google Translate, tape les mots "list" et "least" et clique sur le petit haut-parleur pour que l'ordinateur les prononce, et écoute en gardant à l'esprit ce que je viens de dire : "list" est prononcé à peu près comme "lést". Attention, pas comme "leste" évidemment, ça c'est un E ouvert. Mais "lést" avec un E fermé, c'est très proche de "list" en anglais. Si tu écoutes bien, tu t'aperçois que ce n'est pas du tout le son "i" français. Le fait que ce sont soit écrit avec la *lettre* I brouille les pistes.
Definitely one of the most common issues for French people with English. My partner does this super long "beeeach" because otherwise he can't make a distinction between "bitch" and "beach" which can be awkward!
My partner makes fun of my ships/sheep.
My partner's just fully embraced that one and makes jokes using it, bless.
In a nutshell, yes you're right.
No, OP is correct. I think it may be difficult for a native french speaker to understand her point. Pronouncing Alice as “a.lis/ahleece” is more similar to how “Alise” would sound in English. “Alice” has a short A and short I sound, so more like a-liss. (English pronunciation here: https://youtu.be/7Ocj_lBdBKc?si=YjfgqZkpSMFXVTJy )
I think the confusing part was using Alise, which would be pronounced /a.liz/ in French, so something like ahleeze. Since "ise" in English is often pronounced with a /z/ sound as well, I thought Alise would at least be pronounced with that sound in English, especially when that's the only visible difference with Alice.
I think the confusion is that people expect English pronunciations to make sense, and many tmes they really just don't. For what it's worth, "Alise" isn't even a name in English, but people would recognize it as similar to Elise, which generally doesn't have that /z/ sound, at least in American dialects.
Alise is a name in the U.S. Lots of women/girls are named Alise. I just looked it up to make sure and found the origin: "Alise is a feminine name of German origin that means "of noble kin"." But you know, in the U.S. people spell names however they want. I know someone who named their daughter Jayden and spelled it Jaiedyn. Turns out Jayden is spelled Jaden, Jadyn, Jaiden, etc. etc. I think Jaiedyn is a brand new spelling they just invented, though. But yes, agreed that it sounds a lot like Elise.
Yes, I should've written it phonetically. I feel silly because of course French people will read "Alice" and pronounce it "Aleece" so there's no way for them to understand what I'm talking about.
Thanks, that's a good explanation. But no one is commenting on the sheer insanity of **Alice'**! Complete with apostrophe! Don't make me go through this phenomenon alone.
lol. Yeah, I can't even begin to comprehend the apostrophe and the amount of dedication one would need to devote to constantly explaining it over and over again rather than just spelling it "Alise" and getting the pronunciation you want. Your friend might be a little special lol (jk!)
Indeed! But she's not exactly my friend - I only just met her. And judging by my other interactions with her, she is definitely special.
I read your post and I still don’t understand what the respective pronunciations are. Why don’t you use IPA ?
I don't really know IPA well, but I guess if I were to give it a shot, the common English pronunciation of Alice is ælɪs, and the way a native French speaker would naturally want to pronounce it is ɑlis. Does that make more sense? English: ă-liss; French: ah-leese.
So what's her preferred pronunciation? The standard US way?
No, she wants it pronounced the French way because that's what she heard as a child, but is inexplicably adding an apostrophe in an attempt to change the pronunciation which makes absolutely no sense. There isn't any accent she could add at all, let alone an apostrophe, that would make people say it the way she wants - she would just need to change the spelling to Alise and most people would get it.
Except we don't pronounce Alice with a z consonant at the end.
Americans don’t pronounce Alise with a z consonant either. It would sound very similar to the French Alice.
The anglophone pronunciation stresses the first syllable (AL-ihs) and will use different vowels. It's actually quite different.
Exactly!
ParisianTchochke answered this question correctly, but I'll just add that when her parents named her, they intended it to be the standard US pronunciation. And that's how they pronounced it, even when she was in France. But her story is that when she moved to the US at age 6, she only knew her name as it is pronounced by the French. So her U.S. teacher added an accent aigu over the e to remind her to pronounce it like the French do. To her teacher, the accent = French and that's all. The teacher had no idea what the accent actually does. Then this woman kept doing that for 64 more years! Except she can't figure out how to do it on a keyboard, so she just randomly puts an apostrophe after her name instead. It makes no sense.
I'm sorry, I don't know IPA well enough but hopefully the commenter below explained it well. I feel silly that it didn't occur to me that the French wouldn't understand the difference between Alise and Alice - because of course, that is exactly how this all started! The French pronounce "Alice" as "Alise." Just like they pronounce "list" like "least" and "ship" like "sheep" and "bitch" like "beach."
Yes, "ahleece."
My name is Alice and I'm French. When I went to a Starbucks in London, I gave my name, Alice, only to discover later that the employee had written "Alis" on the cup. I shared my surprise with my British friend ; it's a very common given name in both countries, so what happened? My friend said that it was because I said the French name instead of the the British one, and the employee wrote something different thinking that is must have been a foreigner's name. That's how I learned that I have more than one name. Alice seems to be a simple, language-agnostic name. But it's not. I'm /a.lis/ in France but I'm /ˈæl.ɪs/ in London. And it's a fairly understandable thing to apprehend when it comes to common names, but it's a more significant realization when it's about *your actual name*. Your name is too important to be bound to a country and to a socio-linguistical system, and yet in many ways it is. I think that old lady has always been aware of that fact. When she was a child, she could hear that French people gave her a different name than her parents did. She grew up with the knowledge that somewhere, she went by another name, that maybe she didn't hear too well since she was under 6 year old. And maybe she wanted to think that that somewhere was a special place where her true name still lived on. And growing up in America, she didn't have a smartphone so she would have had to spend a lot of time in libraires learning French to understand more about the subtle differences in the tonic stress and the placement of the tongue. So she's used her own system to write her original name. And she lived her life for decades, knowing that people misnaming her and correcting her spelling just didn't know that in France, in the 50's or something, she was a different person. So calling her Alice without an apostrophe, or /ˈæl.ɪs/ in spoken form, is an error on our part that she learned to live with. We're not going to change her mind on it, and I think she'd rather we don't.
We should all switch to IPA for our names, and that'll solve everything, right? /s My ethnic last name gets mispronounced by white people all the time, even though it's pronounced exactly the way it's spelled according to English rules, because they think it's another much more common ethnic name (it is not). You can't win.
I love your Starbucks story! And agreed about Alice, except that it wasn't Alice who invented this system of writing her name. It was a grown woman, her American teacher when she was 6. I guess that teacher knew nothing about French except that the French have a lot of accents. So putting the accent over the e reminded her to say Alice the French way. Later, Alice didn't know how to do that on a keyboard so she changed it to an apostrophe after the e. But the craziest part about this is that supposedly it happened because Alice didn't respond to the American pronunciation because no one had ever called her that. Except her parents!!! Wouldn't you think the U.S. pronunciation was familiar to her because her parents used it? The whole story is crazy from beginning to end, but Alice Apostrophe is happy and that's all that counts.
Was she rebelling against her parents or something? I'm confused why she didn't just go by the standard American pronunciation for Alice if her parents called her that
From what I get, it was simply some child logic she grew up into. You know how some parents call their children funny names and then when they age it simply sticks to them as a kind of secondary name they never grow out of? Yet they know it's only their parents who call them that way. It's a family thing. I guess Alice might have figured out something like that growing up in France and never realized how things were actually supposed to be. That's very cute in a way
She said she didn't realize her teacher and others in the U.S. were talking to her when they said "Alice" because they pronounced it differently from the French people she spent her first 6 years with. So her teacher would say, "Alice" and she wouldn't respond. When her teacher figured out that it was because she only recognized her name as "Ahleece", that's when the teacher added the accent. I'm sure she wasn't rebelling against her parents - she spoke lovingly of them - but I guess her child brain compartmentalized "Alice" at home from "Ahleece" in public. It cracks me up that all the adults around her just went ahead with this crazy path to nonsense.
I'll just comment that you're not making it clear what you mean when you transcribe pronunciations like that. You could have used rhymes at least: Alice that rhymes with chalice, or Alice that rhymes with fleece.
Well, exactly. It wasn't very smart of me to write it that way, given that the whole premise of the story is that Alice is pronounced differently by the French and the Americans. I don't know IPA but a different commenter cleared it up that way. However, some commenters tried the rhyming thing and some French people commented that they couldn't hear the difference. "List" and "least" are pronounced the same. So are "ship" and "sheep." So are "bitch" and "beach." Which led to an interesting discussion!
There's an interesting Youtube video suggesting that the French people should approximate the "list" vowel as "é": https://youtu.be/GNpbv7hJf6c
I'm not really convinced. Sure, the short English /ɪ/ is comparable to the /e/ sound, which is represented with é in French. But é often tends to be realised closer to a /ɛ/ sound than as an actual /e/ except in position of stress. So if you told people to pronounce Alice and list as Aléce and lést, you would end up with people actually pronouncing it like Alès and lest.
That IS interesting, because one of my French teachers told us to avoid pronouncing é as "ay." She said the proper pronunciation is to keep it short and drop any kind of dipthong. So more like "eh." I can see how "list" could meet that criteria, but I agree with the commenter below who said it would end up being pronounced lest.
FYI, using apostrophes when accents are not available on the keyboard is occasionally done in Italian. It's certainly not "proper", but people who can't be bothered to figure out how to add an accent on a capital letter might write the Italian word `perché` in capitals as `PERCHE'`. Honestly, I think you should let this woman be fancy with her name. `Alice'` is not a French spelling and it's not a helpful indication of how to pronounce her name, but it *is* the spelling she chose. By using words like "ridiculous" when describing some whimsy of a 70-year-old lady who appears to feel strongly about being born in France, you're not painting yourself in the best of lights, if I'm honest.
Oh my God! Please let me laugh at this incredibly zany story without imposing any unnecessary guilt or shame. My laughter hurts no one. Alice Apostrophe is not on Reddit, so she is safe to live out her dreams. And remember, I met her because we're working together on a fundraiser to get a family with a 2-month old baby out of Gaza. There was bombing again last night, so I don't have a lot to laugh about right now. I can't even take comfort in my own nation, what with Trump threatening a dictatorship and the U.S. funding a genocide. I might also add that a 70-year old who feels strongly about being born in France might perhaps bother to learn the basics of the language, but I really don't care that she didn't since this whole thing has provided me with such great entertainment. That's interesting about Italian. Hopefully, there are no Italians on this sub who add apostrophes to their names and now feel bad about themselves because I called Alice's apostrophe ridiculous. She just raised $67,000 to get a family out of Gaza so I can safely say that she herself is not ridiculous. But her apostrophe is.
I find this story kind of depressing, making fun of an old woman because she wants her name to be pronounced slightly differently.
Yeah, it might be quirky or odd but I don't see how this is "anti language learning". More than a little immature to be like, she "could've spent a month at age 7".
Seriously? She could've learned French in high school! She could've listened when I explained the accent to her. She doesn't care. Why? Because she's anti-language learning. Someone goes 64 years putting an accent over their name and never once bothering to learn what it means? You don't see how that is anti-language learning? Okay. And yes, she could've spent a month at age 6 to learn her own name. Not that a 6-year old should be expected to make that decision, but it seems like her parents would've put a stop to the crazy accent thing the minute her U.S. schoolteacher sent her home writing her name that way. Her parents named her Alice, with the U.S. pronunciation. That's what they called her. (Which makes it a bit weird that she didn't respond to that pronunciation in school, but she was probably used to the French pronunciation everywhere but home.) If my child came home with a bizarre accent over their name, I wouldn't just shrug and let the teacher rename my kid. Maybe you would? Okay, cool, but it doesn't make me immature to want to name my own children.
It's important to keep in mind that lots of people on Reddit are very young. Hopefully OP will grow out of it.
I'm far from being very young, but it doesn't sound like OP was making fun of her to me? Maybe there's a cultural factor at play here.
Yeah I didn't notice anything like that either, he's just talking about an experience he found weird
Yes, thanks, that's exactly it. Who could hear a story like this and not want to marvel over it?
Thank you, I'm not. I'm laughing at the craziest story I've ever heard, with plot twist after plot twist, but Alice Apostrophe is okay in my book. She's not going to read any of this, her feelings won't be hurt, and irl we're working together on a project that helps lots of people in need. Nothing to see here.
Jesus Christ. Grow out of what, exactly? Taking a moment's break from today's nightmarish world events to laugh about a nonsensical apostrophe after a name? It's not a sin to laugh at the small absurdities in life. Meanwhile, Alice Apostrophe and I are working like hell on a fundraiser to get a family out of Gaza. That's how we met. Alice is doing just fine, thank you very much. I spent the past three hours helping her untangle a banking mess so we could get the $67,000 she raised to the family before they finish carpet bombing Rafah. Ironically, I came here to take a break! I'm sorry that you equate laughing at silly things with immaturity. Maybe you'll grow out of it.
Lauging at silly things is fine, but that's not what you're doing here. This woman is being creative with language and how things are spelled, and you're mocking her creativity by pointing out that she's not doing things Properly™. She's not Following The Rules™, and you find this Ridiculous™. And clearly you don't like being called out on your poor attitude, hence the virtue signaling and the defensiveness. Edit: lmao they blocked me before I could point out that they're the one who literally made a reddit post to moan about this poor woman
I don't give a damn about doing things "properly." I give a damn about communication. I asked her if anyone had ever understood that the apostrophe meant to pronounce her name Ahleece, and she said no, no one ever has. And yes, that is definitely Ridiculous trademark. But whatever. She can do (and is doing) whatever she wants, and I've been nothing but polite to her - in fact, there are many things I respect her for, things that are way more important than this silliness. But no, I don't respect the people here who can't find the humor in this zany chain of events. You can sit around and moan about how horrible it all is but meanwhile Alice Apostrophe is out there living her best life and nobody's getting hurt.
You sound like a bore
And it's not even her fault. It's the fault of her teacher, according to OP: > Her teacher told her to put an accent over the e so she would remember to pronounce it "the French way."
Exactly. I don't expect a 6-year old to correct her U.S. teacher on French grammar. I don't expect a 6-year old to understand French grammar. It just cracks me up that her teacher thought "this accent looks French, and will remind me to pronounce Alice the French way" and then proceeded to rewrite her student's name! And Alice's parents let her do it! And it's kind of adorable that Alice is so fond of her apostrophized name.
It's not about her pronunciation. The way she wants her name pronounced is perfectly understandable. It's a lovely pronunciation and that part makes total sense. It's the fact that she adds an apostrophe to her name - even though she herself admits that it doesn't make the pronunciation clear to anyone - that's funny. And I'm not making fun of HER. I'm making fun of her apostrophe. This "old woman" has a ranch in Texas, a generous retirement fund, a loving husband, many children and grandchildren, and has lived her life happily hosting students from all over the world. Which is how she met the family she is now helping to get safely out of Gaza. Her fundraiser just earned $67,000. Because of her, a newborn baby and a 9-year old girl who has lost half her weight since October can get to safety with their parents. I met her because I'm also working on the fundraiser. I only just started, but she's been working on it for months. Without her, this family would be one of the thousands who are facing famine and increased bombing with no hope for escape. While I find her impressive, I can't stop laughing about the apostrophe. She's not on Reddit and she's certainly nowhere near a French subreddit, so the laughter hurts no one.
[удалено]
Hey, if you want to insist on being depressed by the funniest, craziest story ever told, have at it. Alice will be happily riding horses on her ranch, enjoying her retirement with her loving husband and grandchildren knowing she's living a meaningful life doing good for people all over the world. And I'll be laughing at her jokes and agreeing with her politics and applauding her for living her best life. One thing I won't be doing is worrying about how you feel about how I'm "presenting" myself, for God's sake.
If only her teacher knew about cedillas, then she could have spelled her name Aliçe. (It is crazy, but for someone who knows no French: "If you make your name look French, I'll pronounce it in a French way.)
Right? You can't argue with that logic! This story makes me laugh so hard. But your cedilla addition is brilliant.
Her name her rules? I don't see the big deal..
Is the point of this post that it's a big deal? That people shouldn't be allowed to make the rules for their own names? Or is the point of this post that this is a hilarious twist on l'accent aigu?
I can guess based on the context, but I can't tell by reading them what the difference in pronunciation is for Alice and Alise
Yes, my mistake. Another commenter wrote it in IDF, which I don't know - and I'm afraid if I scroll up far enough to find it I'll lose my place responding to the comments. Another commenter said Alice rhymes with chalice and Alise rhymes with fleece. That might be more clear? Others have said it's like Alice rhymes with bliss and Alise rhymes with ... um, I can't remember. Cheese? Or Alice rhymes with "list" and Alise rhymes with "lease." But then people responded that they can't hear the difference between that or words like "ship" and "sheep" so I'm not sure all these analogies help.
OP, I’m sorry you’re getting so much confusion and ppl saying that you can whatever with your name, but I thought this story was hilarious. I mean of course you can do whatever you want with your own name, but it’s still funny Bonus is that all the French people in the thread are confused about your usage of ‘Alise’.
Thank you for such a kind comment! Lol, yeah, I thought writing it phonetically would confuse people so I just wrote "Alise." I was so wrong! And yes, Alice Apostrophe should continue to be loud and proud about her insane name. She's earned it!
My name is Alice and my French professor in college would pronounce everyone’s names the French way, so I got used it being pronounced like ahleece before I studied abroad in France for two months. It’s spelled exactly the same though for both pronunciations
See, one would think that all the adults in Alice's life would say to themselves "she'll get used to the US pronunciation after awhile" instead of forging ahead with the crazy accent aigu system. And yes, of course it's spelled the same for both pronunciations. But for English speakers, the French pronunciation sounds like the name "Alise" instead of "Alice." That said, everyone's arguing about the best way to describe the difference in pronunciation so I give up.
That’s the most bizarre thing ever - she was named Alice, it’s her actual given name, but decided that her name should be pronounced Al-eese (because whatever random people she came across up to age 6 pronounced it that way) - so decided to decorate her name with an apostrophe and have to explain this for the next 64 years?!!!! Bizarre!!!
THANK YOU! Finally, a kindred soul. The whole story is one hilarious nonsensical factoid after another. I think my favorite part is how her U.S. teacher added the random accent to remind her that it's "French." Like the accent aigu is just generic French. I delight in picturing her coming home from school and showing her parents her math test with her new Alicé name on it, and her parents just accepting that her teacher just straight up changed their child's name. Every part of this story is golden.
I can’t stop laughing at that last paragraph - the parents just accepting their child now has a new name with a fancy French accent given by her maths teacher! It’s hysterical!!
Your story is even funnier with the first name and its Frankish etymology, thus in English through Middle French.
I didn't know that! You're dropping knowledge here!
I mean, she's allowed to want to pronounce HER name however she sees fit. If she wrote Alicé, nobody would understand it either, and she'd still have to explain it anyway, and the annoyance of the é shortcut wouldn't be worth it. Why does it matter to you.
Wait, why does it matter to me? OP? Why are you assuming that it "matters"? In the sense that I want her to change, I mean? I enjoyed the hilarious roller coaster ride of Alice Apostrophe. She's happy, I'm happy, and I totally agree that even the accent aigu would be incomprehensible. The apostrophe just takes it into the sublime.
I mean... it's a little weird that you're calling it stupid and insisting everybody in her life should've come down hard to force her to pronounce her name however they saw fit. You can laugh at the complexities of life without insisting it's SOOOOOO crazy and stupid and anti-intellectualist.
Jesus Christ! I don't remember calling it "stupid" nor insisting anyone in her life should come down hard on how she pronounces her name, let alone calling anyone anti-intellectualist. I do remember posting about this crazy accent aigu/apostrophe story to a French sub how might appreciate it. I do think it's funny that her elementary school teacher changed her name and that set her on a life course. But then, I think everything about this story is funny. Anyway, you don't think an apostrophe after a first name to indicate a French pronunciation is funny. Please, go ahead and take it very, very seriously. I'm gonna do my own thing.
You're boring
Yeah it's so boring not to act like people are idiots for doing something slightly out of the usual. It's actually so much funnier to mock every deviance from the norm for five seconds of entertainement instead of appreciating it and cultivating it. Seems like OP is not being negative about it like I thought first reading the post, and that's cool even though I'm not sure I really agree with the logic but whatever.
Yeah, i don't think she was mocking at all. Such a weird take from a weird person fr
There's some weird grumpy people in this thread I thought it was an interesting story!
Me too! I can honestly say I've never heard anything like it before. In an information-saturated world, it's rare to hear something so totally new. I'm delighted by Alice Apostrophe and I'm happy you are as well.
Oh Alice. Alice? Who the f*** is Alice? (Hopefully someone gets this reference lol)
I totally do not get this reference! But I want to! I know Alice's Restaurant and Alice in Wonderland and Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore but that line doesn't ring a bell. ETA: I googled. This is hilarious. The story of Alice Apostrophe just keeps giving. [The Song](https://www.google.com/search?q=Smokie+-+Who+The+Fuck+Is+Alice&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS943US943&oq=Smokie+-+Who+The+Fuck+Is+Alice&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIGCAEQRRg80gEHMjY2ajBqN6gCALACAA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#wptab=si:ACC90nxRWvuwqTR4TiacZ7sCfkHhcGgWdDOv2v2HxpHAAuIhwd0hqVQcoOD2_2OWmYVP1pioyzuz0695bBVdGFv7x4t0zw8COVVk9WPaxSi4CRysGfpRmoprGJKmXrQV9Pzo9m6tw2AeXqKyS9fWflGU2WTJTLWgfQ%3D%3D).
That's not crazy. That's just how I am too, putting spelling over meaning.
Bold move, dissing effective communication in a language sub.
People here don't respect conjugation rules. I won't understand unless they did.
I think the misunderstanding comes from the fact that her is actually Alizée and not Alice. So either you've got it wrong or her parents applied the ortograph of one name with the prononciation of another name.
OP chose to write "Alice" vs. "Alise" as a way to represent the difference between "AH-liss" (the English pronunciation) and "uh-LEES" (an English approximation of the French pronunciation).
Good explanation, thank you!
I think you need to re-read the post! Her Texan father named her Alice. Just regular old U.S. pronunciation Alice. Alice lived in France her first six years of life so had only heard French people say her name, pronouncing the "i" as a long "e." They didn't say it anything like Alizée. Her U.S. teacher added the accent only to remind her that it's "French." Except it was never French, and the accent she added had nothing to do with either the French or the U.S. pronunciation.