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So I was asking this question on ChatGPT

How to pronounce Bézout's Identity?

Since Bézout is a French name, I expected it sounded like "BAY-zoos" (the silent t in French), but the AI told me that I have to follow English pronunciation if it takes a possession [ 's ]. Thus, it thought that the correct pronunciation is "BAY-zoots". But Why is it? I've often heard someone calling non-English name with possession without losing the original pronunciation as to where the word came from. Or Was I hearing a non-native speaker?

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    Don't know why ChatGPT said that, but sometimes there isn't a deep, important, or satisfying reason for that. I can't imagine a reason it would be correct. Commented May 22 at 12:36
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    Basically, in an alternate universe we could imagine a language that followed a rule or custom like the one ChatGPT told you. That makes it the kind of thing ChatGPT might say, regardless of if it's true. Commented May 22 at 12:39
  • ChatGPT & friends know everything and their opposite, try not to stay in Kindergarten with them. Commented May 22 at 12:59
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    I’m voting to close this question because it takes LLM outout as truth. Commented May 22 at 13:51
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    @MichaelHarvey What do you mean by "it takes LLM outout as truth"? I mentioned I used chatGPT to show people that, I at least made an attempt to do small research first, not just posting a lazy question. Although, at that time, I didn't think of YouTube as Dave suggested in the answer. I haven't been active in this site since 3 or 4 years ago before LLM is a thing in my country. Also, I don't trust ChatGPT that much, I mean, why would I ask this question if I trusted ChatGPT in the first place? You're being unreasonable. This may help others as well to learn something new. Commented May 22 at 23:38

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The LLM is wrong, both about the specific example and the general rule.

The first word of "Bézout's identity" is always pronounced something like /beɪ.zuz/ - with no final /t/ - as if it were the usual possessive form of an English name /beɪ.zu/. Here is an example of a native English speaker pronouncing it this way.

In general, there is no rule that silent letters in foreign words "turn on" when used in possessives. Another example from mathematics is "Fermat's last theorem", the first word of which is pronounced roughly as /fər.maz/ in English, with no /t/ sound. Also consider e.g. "Camus's", which is pronounced as /kamuz/ - not as /kamuzəz/, which is what it would be if the first s were not silent (cf. "James's").

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  • Not sure about the specific examples here. I think there is variation between speakers in the pronunciation of "Fermat" and "Fermat's" with many people who are not familiar with the modern French pronunciation saying the "t". "Camuz" is unknown to me. I'd have no way to guess the pronunciation Commented May 22 at 21:34
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    @JamesK The name "[Albert] Camus" is pronounced in English as /kamu/, and its possessive is formed like a normal English possessive: /kamuz/, just like the possessive of "shoe" is /ʃuz/. I've never heard anyone pronounce the final "t" in "Fermat", but I do work in a math department, so I take your point that many people might pronounce that final /t/. But the question is about whether Anglophones who do pronounce those names with silent final letters "turn on" the final letters when pronouncing the possessive forms, and as far as I can tell the answer to that is an unequivocal no. Commented May 22 at 22:53
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    Maybe an example of a more famous-to-the-Anglosphere public figure like Brigitte Bardot would be less controversial? In this video we clearly have "Bardot's mother" as /bardoʊz/. Commented May 22 at 22:57
  • @Dave That's a good example, thank you Dave. By the way, is this also the reason as to why some English words have similar pronunciation to foreign languages as they preserved the original pronunciation apart from just name words? Commented May 22 at 23:48
  • @user516076 I'm not sure I understand you. Can you give an example of what you mean? Or better yet, ask a separate question with such an example. Commented May 23 at 2:59
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One shouldn’t look to ChatGPT or other large language models (LLMs) for authoritative information about anything, let alone pronunciation. All they do—their “secret sauce”—is to learn which words tend to follow immediately after which strings of other words. So in particular, for a question about which there doesn’t happen to exist tons of text available on line, the result of their what’s-the-next-word technique has the effect of just making stuff up, responding with word sequences whose meaning (if they even have any meaning) has nothing to do with the meaning of the questions that they purport to answer.

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