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Can you say shibboleth
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2024
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How else would you pronounce shibboleth??
si-bo-let
The story is people from one area pronounced it one way, and it was used to identify them, or something. As in, the word shibboleth, Hebrew for... I've literally no idea, but that's the reason this word means something like "tacitly recognised in-group identifier" nowadays.
I want to embellish the story with murder and stuff but I'd be winging it, I can't remember the details properly.
Edit: it means grain, apparently, or more specifically the "ear" of the plant in the context of grains. But that's not important now.
Oh... Then the pronunciation guide from my search engine is saying it the wrong way. I guess so many people have pronounced it incorrectly that now it's kinda acceptable. It's "foyer" all over again. Say it the right way and people just think you're pretentious.
Holy shit yes, it's pronounced shibboleth nowadays - unless you're speaking Hebrew, maybe? I just mean the title is a reference to that story.
I guess long i vs short i? Not a big deal. Bad example imo. A better metric would be something like boatswain or colonel.
Wait how do you pronounce boatswain!?
Boh-sun