Talks to Watch

How to Pronounce Synecdoche

2.6M views · Jan 11, 2012 · 0:09 · 0 HN recommenders · 4 mentions · discussed 2021–2026

A short pronunciation clip showing how to say the word 'synecdoche'. It has almost no other content.

Why Hacker News points people here: Cited only as a running joke, usually when someone brings up the word or the Charlie Kaufman film title.

What Hacker News said 4

JokeImnimoNov 2021
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I looked up "synecdoche" (to see if it would give me this video this video ), and a few of the examples are of people saying "Schenectady" but mis-transcribed. I guess you can just use your judgment to filter out a few mistakes, so no big deal.

in “Use YouTube to improve your English pronunciation” · view on HN
Jokej33zusjuiceJan 2023
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Did you look up how to pronounce it? I was mispronouncing it for like a year after seeing “Synecdoche New York” (it’s kinda pretentious, not for everyone). My coworker laughed at me when I said the name to him. I’d only ever seen it written, and did not look at a pronunciation chart. Wah wah. Just in case anyone else is getting it wrong like I was … this video (But really, link )

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JokewincyJan 2024
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Reminds me of when I was trying to figure out the pronunciation for “synedoche” and got this as the top YouTube results. this video

in “Scammy AI-Generated Books Are Flooding Amazon” · view on HN
JokewincyApr 2026

“someone had pulled a very funny prank from an earlier, less serious time on YouTube”

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A little off topic, but any time I see that word, it reminds me of the first time I read the word “synechdoche”, I wanted to know how to pronounce it and watched a very helpful YouTube video [0] three times before realizing someone had pulled a very funny prank from an earlier, less serious time on YouTube. I laughed and laughed. [0] this video

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