Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Sean, Shane, Shawn, Pronunciation

This is topic Sean, Shane, Shawn, Pronunciation in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 10-18-2003, 04:02 AM:

I got into a discussion with ....well, that's not important right now… about how to pronounce the various variations of "that" name.

I would like to know from those that are so endowed/blessed with that name as to how they pronounce their name.

Does Shawn rhyme with dawn?

Does Shane rhyme with chain?

Does Sean rhyme with scene like in "Scene 12, Take 5"?

Or are all pronounced "Shawn" so as to rhyme with dawn?

>>>Phil

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 10-18-2003, 04:15 AM:

Does Shawn rhyme with dawn? Almost, the 'aw' bit tends to be slightly longer.

Does Shane rhyme with chain? Yes.

Does Sean rhyme with scene like in "Scene 12, Take 5"? No, either the same as Shawn, or more like si-orn.

At least that's how they are in my bart of the world. Pronunction tends to vary from place to place. If I was to go a couple of hundred kilometres North to Birmingham (England, not AL) they would, no doubt pronounce them differently; but then they all talk funny in Birmingham, can't understand a word they say!

Seriously, pronounciation
does vary considerably, though Professor Higgins in 'My Fair Lady' is a bit exaggerated.

Posted by Dick Vaughan (Member # 540) on 10-18-2003, 05:06 AM:

On the female side:

Sian is pronounced Sharn
Siobahn is pronounced Sh-varn or Sh-vorn

At least hereabouts [Wink]

And as for Phil Hill is that pronounced Fill Ill or Feel Eel? [Big Grin]

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 10-18-2003, 05:16 AM:

[Phil Hill]

prefers "coot" (just like it sounds).

Posted by Shane Hoffmann (Member # 1620) on 10-18-2003, 11:12 AM:

Shane is a completely different name than Shawn, Sean, etc.

It amazes me that everytime I meet someone new. I'll introduce myself as SHANE, and at least half of the time they will call me SHAWN for quite a while before getting it straight. Is it really that hard?

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 10-18-2003, 11:26 AM:

Who could get THAT wrong?
"Shaaaane! Come back, Shane!"

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 10-18-2003, 03:35 PM:

How do you pronounce Phil? Does it rhyme with Hill?

Posted by Gerard S. Cohen (Member # 994) on 10-18-2003, 03:43 PM:

"Bei mir bist du schoen (pronounced shane) "

("To me you are handsome (beautiful, good looking)"
Music by Sholom Secunda; Yiddish lyrics by Jacob Jacobs.
Big hit by the Andrews Sisters; English lyrics by Sammy Cahn & Saul Chaplin, 1937

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 10-18-2003, 05:02 PM:

Thank you Stephen for your "civil" response. [thumbsup]

Some of yous are jerks... Ummm Brad! I asked a sincere question, not some "female" response! Dick! [Razz]

For the un-enlightened, "Phil" is pronounced by most people as "fill". But, some places in the UK and in the US deep south I've been called (among other things) "feel". In Japan I am called "Gaijin". [Razz]

"Hill" does indeed rhyme with "fill".

I hope that is clear to all you pussy-asses! Mike! [evil]

And "SHANE" I totally understand your feelings... there are plenty of stupid people out there.... [Razz]

>>> Phil ("Fill" NOT "FEEL") [Big Grin]

Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 10-18-2003, 05:19 PM:

As a former stage manager for The Wayner at the Sands Hotel, I must give the obligatory plug for his hit Danke Schoen (Kurt Schwabach & Milt Gabler/Bert Kaempfert)...

Phil, in your case I thought it was henna gaijin [evil]

I would know--mine was baka gehin gaijin [beer]

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 10-18-2003, 05:34 PM:

Paul! I "KNEW" when I posted that, you would comment! It was "bait" for you! Hahahhaha [beer]

>>> Phil

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 10-18-2003, 06:29 PM:

Bei mir bist du schoen (pronounced shane)

Um...no. Not in German anyway. It should be "Bei mir bist du schön" and that is more of a "shern" than "shane."

As a former stage manager for The Wayner at the Sands Hotel, I must give the obligatory plug for his hit Danke Schoen

Well the Wayner has been pronouncing it wrong all these years. The "Danke shane" pronunciation has always made me cringe.

But I will defer to Michael for the definitive answer.

Posted by Gerard S. Cohen (Member # 994) on 10-18-2003, 08:39 PM:

"Bei mir bist du schoen,
I'll try to explain,
It means you're the fairest in the land.
I could say 'Bella, bella'
Even say 'Vunderbar'
In any language...I could tell you..[not sure of this line]
How grand you are! " etc.
(English lyrics copyright 1937 by Cahn & Chaplin)

Steve,
Of course in German schoen is pronounced <shurn> (rhymes with churn) but if you "Dress British, Speak Yiddish" it's pronounced <shane> (rhymes with explain)
Gerard

Posted by Rachel Gilardi (Member # 1016) on 10-18-2003, 08:44 PM:

Where is Sean McKinnon, I'm waiting for him to chime in... He always complains that people say "seen" instead of "shawn".

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 10-18-2003, 09:00 PM:

Gerard is right. The "shane" pronunciation is the the Yiddish variation (Yiddish itself can be either seen as a separate language closely related to German or a German dialect).
However, it is also used in some German dialects. In the Berlin dialect you can use both pronunciations. That in turn is probably because it contains a lot of Yiddish elements ("Ganove, Schlamassel, Kittchen" - Gerard, do you know what these mean?).

The qoted songs are always sung "shane" also in German.

Posted by Barry Floyd (Member # 385) on 10-19-2003, 12:55 AM:

When I worked in the kitchen at a "Hooters" restuarant while in college, I worked in the kitchen with a guy named "Sean".... but he pronounced in "SAY - ON"

Never understood it, but SAY-ON it was...

Posted by Dick Vaughan (Member # 540) on 10-19-2003, 04:11 AM:

If you worked in Hooters surely there are more important things to think about than how some guy pronounces his name! [Big Grin]

Posted by Gerard S. Cohen (Member # 994) on 10-19-2003, 08:10 AM:

"Thief", "unlucky oaf", and "caressing(?)".

When I led an AYH bicycle tour up the Rhine (on the tow-paths),
I noticed the jugenherberger house-parents corrected my pronunciation of German, each in a slightly different way. Perhaps the regional pronunciation from plattsdeutch to hochdeutch (low to high German) followed geography.

My paternal grandmother spoke Yiddish that sounded like high German, since she came from Northern Europe and maintained a Teutonic attitude of superiority, while my maternal grandmother,
who grew up on a farm in Romania, spoke a much softer "mamalossen."

A problem arises when transliterating a language written in a non-Latin alphabet into English. There are at least two common methods of transcribing Yiddish, as there are of Russian, Japanese and Chinese. Witness "Czar,Tsar"; "Chaikovsky, Tsaikofsky", etc. The YIVO Institute favors one method of transliterating Yiddish, which is written in the Hebrew/Aramaic
alphabet, into English, but not all publishers conform to it.

I had misgivings in writing "schoen" for "shane", but that is the way it appears in the song title on a CD album with the copyright data, so I conformed.

Incidentally, "Shane", "Shandale" (final 'e" pronounced) is both a name and a term of endearment in Yiddish.

--schoene madchen=pretty girl (G)
--shane madel= pretty girl (Y)

Gerard

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 10-19-2003, 04:27 PM:

Ganove - crook, thief
Schlamassel - bad luck, difficult situation
kittchen - jail

2 out of three - not bad! Did you guess or look it up?

Posted by Gerard S. Cohen (Member # 994) on 10-19-2003, 04:42 PM:

Mike--
I knew the first two, though thief is often spelled "gonif."
I guessed on the third, thinking it might be something like "kitzel", a tickling, rather than a "clink."
Gerard

Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 10-20-2003, 10:15 PM:

Sean is pronounced the same as Shawn. The only difference between Sean, Shawn, Saun, and Shauwn is that Sean is the only correct way to spell the name.

Posted by Sean Weitzel (Member # 244) on 10-20-2003, 11:21 PM:

I've never understood why people would want to pronounce it "seen". I've never met another Sean that preferred it pronounced that way. I am a 'shawn' just like the rest.
Add to that my last name, and I think i've had every pronuncation in the book thrown at me (it's White-Sell - or 'Veit-sell' if you want the hard core German.)

Posted by Sean M. Grimes (Member # 445) on 10-21-2003, 01:08 AM:

When I was younger I would kick folks in the crotch if they every tried to pronounce "Sean" - "Seeaun" and I still do. [beer]

I just wanted to keep it three Sean's in a row!

Posted by Rachel Gilardi (Member # 1016) on 10-21-2003, 02:05 AM:

Too many Sean's, my heads gonna blow up! [puke]

Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 10-22-2003, 01:17 AM:

I had one friend who used to tell me that I should be "Seen and not heard"

or how about "sean sean the leprechaun went to school with nothing on..." [Roll Eyes]

Posted by Sean M. Grimes (Member # 445) on 10-22-2003, 02:53 AM:

A long long time ago in elementary school I had a "friend" who reused to call me anything but "seeaan grimus (as in the McDonalds ripoff of the Popeye character "Wimpy"...) He was the first one who got the crotch kickin!

After my prepubescent days, no one execpt telemarkters has royally tounge-tied it... Thank God.

It comes down to if you can not pronounce a persons name, either A- Ask, or B- Use the "Champ, Sport, Guy, Buddy, Lady" bullshit euphimisims. [Big Grin]

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 10-22-2003, 03:01 AM:

I fail to see the humor of kicking anyone in the crotch. That is really stupid. [Mad]

If someone did that to me, they would be looking up the barrel of a 9mm... ummm not film.

>>> Phil

Posted by Bob Maar (Member # 763) on 10-22-2003, 05:04 AM:

Excuse me, but I need to know how to pronounce the following names:

Phil

John

Brad

Joe

Ralph

Mary

Rachel

Samantha

Please send your answer's to Sean or Shawn. Thank You

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 10-22-2003, 06:57 AM:

Michael --

Are you familiar with the American TV show "Laverne & Shirley" ?

What's that they're saying at the beginning?

Schlameil, Schlamassel....something-something incorporated....

???

Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 10-22-2003, 11:33 AM:

quote:
Schlameil, Schlamassel....something-something incorporated....

The word that goes into the 'something-something' area would be "Hasenpfeffer".

Hasenpfeffer is a German rabbit dish. [Smile]

-Aaron

Posted by Sean M. Grimes (Member # 445) on 10-22-2003, 03:45 PM:

Phil,

I guess I didn't bring my dry sense of humor across well enough. Sorry. Please don't kick me in the crotch. [Eek!]

Violence gets you nowhere besides jail,
Sean

Posted by Daniel Braun (Member # 1869) on 10-22-2003, 11:41 PM:

phill hill is a big frightened pussy cat !

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 10-22-2003, 11:49 PM:

Daniel! How the hell are you? Long time no see... you still at the big I?

Sean, I was just replying in my "dry" humor as you were. Everyone knows that here in Los Angeles we all have .44 magnums... Dallas is where they have the 9mm...

>>> Phil

Posted by Daniel Braun (Member # 1869) on 10-23-2003, 12:26 AM:

Hey there mr. 70 mm how the heck rrrrR you doing? I'm still @ the good ole " I " ANY HOOT I can't beleive you've not convinced these good people that LF is where it's @...
( 70 mm rules .....)

Posted by Sean M. Grimes (Member # 445) on 10-23-2003, 02:45 AM:

Ya mean in Rockwall where they back their Glock up their ass? [eyes]

Got ya Phil, understanding and all. [Razz]

Sean