Pronunciation that makes you cringe

[Cudzoziemiec]

I've never heard leverAGE. Do they say that? I've heard the financial version rhyming with clever and the moving rhyming with leaver.

[T42]

Everyone in financial services pronounces "leverage" the USian way 

I tend to regard that one as a useful warning.  But then I was trying (without much success) to get "soddering" adopted for the unsatisfying lead-free version of the process.

Leaving out the -er would probably get turfed out and all.

[Mr Larrington]

In managementese it's LEVVER-age or LEV-RIDGE or something else wrong and unpleasant and generally likely to give me an itchy shovel finger.

[citoyen]

'koritzo'? I'm not sure I've heard that, but it's logical, given that Italian tends to be higher regarded (in food at least) than Spanish.

No - I have heard it said with a k but that’s not what I meant. Perhaps I’m being over-sensitive to what is really a minor nuance of pronunciation, but then it also riles me when cloth-eared northerners can’t discern a difference between a “long” a (as in the correct pronunciation of bath) and an “ar” sound.

And I am *definitely* in the right on that one.

[T42]

'koritzo'? I'm not sure I've heard that, but it's logical, given that Italian tends to be higher regarded (in food at least) than Spanish.

Funny, though: I reckon the koritzo clan all know how to pronounce macho. They probably don't realize they're both Spanish, though.

I like chilometro in Italian.  I know it's kilo- but the idea of a chillometer is rather Inherent-Vice-ish.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I've heard people say "mako" (and not just for the shark). Okay, only one person. But "makismo" seems to be an accepted pronunciation.

[ian]

I was reminded yesterday evening of one of the weird transatlantic things – Anthony Bourdain was eating 'turbo' which is, of course, turbot (which any fool knows rhymes with robot). The Americans also insist on the Frenchish pronunciation of Fillet o' Fish. Even in poorest southern backwater that can host a McDonalds, they'll fillet like a mignon. See also clique and niche which I pronounce properly (like an Englishman, and the correct way to pronounce chorizo is, of course, sausage).

Though just to fuck with my expectations, in Texas (or it might have been Colorado) some years back I asked for the buffet [pronounced buff-eh!] and the waiter looked back at me for a second and said don't you mean the buffet, sir? OK, more of a burrf-it. No, I replied brightly, I mean the buffet. Anyway, it was Texas (or Colorado), so we solved our pronunciation dispute through an exchange of medium-to-high calibre gunfire.

[Cudzoziemiec]

"I've got a car as big as a turbot
And it's got a turbo driven by a robot"
As the B52s sang. I think.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Though just to fuck with my expectations, in Texas (or it might have been Colorado) some years back I asked for the buffet [pronounced buff-eh!] and the waiter looked back at me for a second and said don't you mean the buffet, sir? OK, more of a burrf-it. No, I replied brightly, I mean the buffet. Anyway, it was Texas (or Colorado), so we solved our pronunciation dispute through an exchange of medium-to-high calibre gunfire.

Buffet the vampire slayer (with medium-to-high calibre gunfire)

[T42]

German colleagues used to translate 'File not found' as 'Filet nicht gefunden'.

[ian]

Apparently, turbot is turbut. There's seems some dispute on the correct American pronunciation, but Anthony definitely said turbo.

This all said, I don't think I've ever encountered a turbot, plated or otherwise. I can, as a gentleman of class and refinement who enjoys only the splendid things, confirm the US pronunciation of Fillet o' Fish. Except I'm, in part, wrong-o. It's apparently a Filet-o-Fish®. All these years I've been ordering it like a jaunty devil-may-care Franco-Irishman, the bastard son of a Breton fisherman and flame-haired Irish maiden, freshly arrived and seeking my fame and fortune in America.

[Mr Larrington]

USAnians of my acquaintance pronounce the sossidge "ch-ree-zo" and the locally-built stuff I had once in Nevada knocked the Spaignish version into a cocked hat.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I was reminded yesterday evening of one of the weird transatlantic things – Anthony Bourdain was eating 'turbo' which is, of course, turbot (which any fool knows rhymes with robot). The Americans also insist on the Frenchish pronunciation of Fillet o' Fish. Even in poorest southern backwater that can host a McDonalds, they'll fillet like a mignon. See also clique and niche which I pronounce properly (like an Englishman, and the correct way to pronounce chorizo is, of course, sausage).

Though just to fuck with my expectations, in Texas (or it might have been Colorado) some years back I asked for the buffet [pronounced buff-eh!] and the waiter looked back at me for a second and said don't you mean the buffet, sir? OK, more of a burrf-it. No, I replied brightly, I mean the buffet. Anyway, it was Texas (or Colorado), so we solved our pronunciation dispute through an exchange of medium-to-high calibre gunfire.

There might be solid historical reasons why USAnians are more receptive than Britannians to French pronunciation.

[T42]

I noticed that what USAnians pronounce the au jus Brits pronounce gravy.

[ian]

Gravy in the US is a Different Beast. Eaten with biscuits.

[Andrij]

Gravy in the US is a Different Beast. Eaten with biscuits.

That's sausage gravy.

Now I'm hungry...

[T42]

Right enough, we once had a bloke who'd spent years in NY to dinner, and he pronounced my roquefort/madeira/cream sauce to be 'lovely gravy'.  We put it down to his ancestral Mancunian barbarity, but maybe he'd been indoctrinated over there.

Hum. Maybe it was œufs meurettes. Anyway, gravy was the term.

[FifeingEejit]

I confess that I've never heard anyone British pronounce chorizo that way. It always comes out as a comedy (I use the word advisedly) Allo Allo accent. Once in Bingley our waitress did a rather splendid chor-IT-toh! which was delivered with such verve that I feared she was about to fight a bull or commence the flamenco mid-order. I can't really capture it though, because it was also in broad Yorkshirese. She didn't, unfortunately, start dancing and singing and the only bovine was plated.

Come to think of it, I'd like to hear Italians Talk Cockney, the first of my podcasts in Making Foreigns Talk Proper series.

If we're saying words how they're written  then Chorizo gets a bit weird up here

/X/ oh rrr ee * oh

The * depends on how you want to pronounce the yough, properly or as a glottal stop.

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

[hubner]

If we're speaking English then, as far I care, we should use the anglicized pronunciation rather than mangling foreign pronunciation with comedy lisps and the like. Quite often it just sounds affected.

What really grates is people affecting the Castilian lisp for chorizo but starting it with a hard English 'tch'

  what should it be? Sh- or K- ?

https://youtu.be/yNM8rN7vf2w

(closer to 'sh' than 'tch', I'd say)

That is definitely a ch as in chore (IPA: tʃ), and definitely not sh (ʃ) as in shore.

And it seems Spanish doesn't even have ʃ as a "normal" sound, only occurring in foreign words.

[citoyen]

That is definitely a ch as in chore (IPA: tʃ), and definitely not sh (ʃ) as in shore.

Yes, but there’s a difference between a soft ch and a hard ch. The Spanish ch is softer than the English ch - not sh as in shore, just a bit more towards that end of the spectrum.

Am I really the only one who can hear this?

Possibly a hang-over from my trumpet playing days.

[Mr Larrington]

Gravy in the US is a Different Beast. Eaten with biscuits.

Biscuits in the US is a Different Beast.  Scones.  Eaten with wallpaper paste.  For breakfast. 

[Pickled Onion]

That is definitely a ch as in chore (IPA: tʃ), and definitely not sh (ʃ) as in shore.

Yes, but there’s a difference between a soft ch and a hard ch. The Spanish ch is softer than the English ch - not sh as in shore, just a bit more towards that end of the spectrum.

Am I really the only one who can hear this?

Possibly a hang-over from my trumpet playing days.

There is a difference, a Spanish ch is lighter and slightly more aspirated. My Spanish teacher explained it like this: for an English ch you push your lips forwards and form an "O" shape; for a Spanish ch, stretch your lips to a grin. But the sound is still a ch, much closer to  tʃ than ʃ.

[citoyen]

There is a difference, a Spanish ch is lighter and slightly more aspirated.

Which is exactly what I said in the first place, so I really don’t understand why you challenged me on it.

[ian]

Gravy in the US is a Different Beast. Eaten with biscuits.

Biscuits in the US is a Different Beast.  Scones.  Eaten with wallpaper paste.  For breakfast. 

I quite like it as an occasional novelty (like giant pancake stacks*, which I always regret when I attempt to move and realise I've achieved the sort of mass usually found orbiting G class stars). That said, I've lived for the while in the South. You might think things are a slower pace down there because of the humid climes but mostly it takes till 7pm to digest breakfast. This is generally not helped by the average drink size being 32 fluid oz.

*I've told the story before, but it deserves retelling, I once ate two helpings of pancakes just to stay tuned to the adventure of two wizards in LA. Seriously, these two guys were deep in conversation about how to use magic to get themselves noticed in Hollywood. They were quite serious if it turned out ill-equipped since it seemed they had yet to learn any wizardry, but I admired their career plan to learn to be professional full-qualified wizards and only then take Hollywood by storm.

[Pingu]

Furry boots he from?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VYSgMk6A6g