this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2023
28 points (100.0% liked)

Space

7290 readers
2 users here now

News and findings about our cosmos.


Subcommunity of Science


This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Not going to describe how I would've tried to pronounce it...

top 10 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] neotecha 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

When I read Hitchhiker's Guide, I pronounced it b'tell-jew-EEss

There's a thought that:

Never make fun of people for mispronouncing a word. It means they learned it by reading

Best I understand, this is a quote without a known attribution

[–] iamhazel 1 points 1 year ago

I love that! Also the xkcd about being 1 of 10,000 people to learn something :)

[–] Faceman2K23@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

colloquially it might be beetlejuice, but traditionally it's more like betelgyse or betelgoosa

[–] kristian@lemmy.astheriver.art 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

like betelgyse

Yeah I remember Patrick Moore always pronouncing it like that (with a hard g).

Although Wikipedia suggests that the name originally comes from the Arabic for Orion, al-Jauzā', so the colloquial pronunciation is probably more correct.

[–] iamhazel 1 points 1 year ago

Okay well that's reassuring as that's how I was pronouncing it in my head!

[–] Uriel238@lemmy.one 3 points 1 year ago

My dad was an astronomer, and as a toddler I thought it was the funniest name for a star. Then the movie came out and I was bugged that they misspelled the name for the promotional posters (but not in the movie itself).

[–] MajorMajormajormajor@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 year ago

Don't say Beytelgyoose three times in the mirror...

[–] aprilfollies@feddit.online 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It’s even more fun to look up the origins of the name - “hand/arm of the central one”. E.g. https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Betelgeuse

[–] iamhazel 2 points 1 year ago

Fascinating!

[–] DmMacniel@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago

But only in English. In German though... it's very strangely pronounced. Beite-zeus (but the z is soft)

load more comments
view more: next ›