Talk:Frederick Forsyth

Pronunciation

What is the reason for claiming that the name should be pronounced /ˈfoʊrsaɪt/ in explanatory note a? There is a footnote to reference 1, the article "Frederick Forsyth, Thrilling In Real Life", but there is no information on the pronunciation of the name in that article. According to the Swedish encyclopedia Nationalencyklopedin the pronunciation should be [fɔ:saⁱʹθ], according to "Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary" the name in general in British English should be pronounced ˈfɔː.saɪθ or fɔː.'saɪθ, according to Collins Bill's and Frederick's surname should be pronounced ˈfɔːsaɪθ, https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/forsyth, according to the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary Bruce Forsyth in British English should be pronounced /ˌbruːs ˈfɔːsaɪθ/, https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/bruce-forsyth, according to Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English Frederick F. should be pronounced /fɔːˈsaɪθ $ fɔːr-, ˈfredərɪk/, https://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/frederick-forsyth. To sum up: Other reference sources seem to agree that "or" in the surname should be pronounced ɔː (without any r-sound in British English), not with the diphthong əʊ (or oʊ), and "th" θ, not with a t-sound. They disagree about what syllable should be stressed. Ericus (talk) 07:23, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

I just tagged the IPA as {{dubious}} myself. The source given (an NPR audio interview with transcript) sounds to me like "Four-syth" rather than "four-sight". I'd never heard the surname pronounced with the stress on the second syllable, but admittedly I just heard a TV newsreader say it that way when announcing the author's death. Go figure. Muzilon (talk) 07:26, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

I just noticed that you questioned the pronunciation at about the same time. /ˈfoʊrsaɪt/ would mean that the first syllable is supposed to be pronounced with the diphthong əʊ (or oʊ), as in the words "no" and "know", not as the word "four". I didn't realize that the source was an audio interview with a written summary. I agree that the interviewer's pronunciation sounds like ˈfɔːsaɪθ, if that is what you mean, but the author never says his own name, or am I wrong? Presumably he would have corrected the interviewer anyway if his pronunciation would have been incorrect at first, and the interviewer would have recorded a better pronunciation. Ericus (talk) 07:49, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

My IPA is rusty, but I've always heard the surname pronounced as FOUR-syth, never (well, until today) as four-SYTH. Muzilon (talk) 07:55, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

I've removed the IPA endnote as {{failed verification}}. We don't have a pronunciation guide for the aforementioned Bruce Forsyth (no relation as far as I know), so we probably don't need one here either. Muzilon (talk) 22:39, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

I disagree. Until I heard about the author's death on the news I believed his surname was pronounced ˈfɔːsɪθ with a short i-sound as in the word "myth" (as opposed to with the diphthong aɪ as in the name Forsyte). Now somebody had added a link to a video where the author pronounces his name as in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, but erroneously claimed that it was pronounced For-SCYTHE in the video. I deleted this part and added a reference to Longman. My reference may be formally incorrect, but I hope somebody else can correct it. 83.249.123.5 (talk) 16:52, 14 June 2025 (UTC)