Americans can't pronounce 'macabre'!
Pierre de Brouillard
Both of these pronounciations are wrong, IMHO! :-D
I've *never* heard an American pronounce 'macabre' correctly, but,
blessum, they can do lots of other things! :-D
Many Englishmen also struggle with 'macabre' but <brags> *I* can
pronounce it! :-D
Can you, my little pumpernickels? :-D
The French have got it down to a tee, lol!
Pierre from Gascony
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
<paci...@btopenworld.com> wrote:
>http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/macabre
>
>Both of these pronounciations are wrong, IMHO! :-D
>
>I've *never* heard an American pronounce 'macabre' correctly, but,
>blessum, they can do lots of other things! :-D
>
"macabre" is an English word. It was stolen from French, but when it is used
by English speakers it is English.
Both those pronunciation are correct for the English word "macabre".
>Many Englishmen also struggle with 'macabre' but <brags> *I* can
>pronounce it! :-D
>
>Can you, my little pumpernickels? :-D
>
>The French have got it down to a tee, lol!
>
>Pierre from Gascony
--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.english.usage)
Athel Cornish-Bowden
<paci...@btopenworld.com> said:
> http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/macabre
>
> Both of these pronounciations are wrong, IMHO!
What has your opinion got to do with it? The right way to pronounce
"macabre" in American English is the way Americans pronounce it.
Your spelling (and by implication your pronunciation) of
"pronunciation" is certainly wrong, however.
[ ... ]
> The French have got it down to a tee, lol!
French pronounce the French word "macabre" correctly, but in my
experience they don't pronounce the English word "macabre" correctly.
--
athel
geo...@ankerstein.org
wrote:
You should visit the American Mid-West. The pronunciation of
various place names of French origin is truly bizarre.
GFH
tony cooper
wrote:
My own favorite is a city in my own home state of Indiana:
Versailles. Call it anything but "Ver-sales" any people look at you
funny.
--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida
Dr Peter Young
Nothing new there! The WW1 battle of Ypres was always pronounced
"wipers".
With best wishes,
Peter.
--
Peter, \ / \ Prestbury, Cheltenham, Glos. GL52
Anne \ / __ __ \ England.
and / / \ | | |\ | / _ \ http://pnyoung.orpheusweb.co.uk
family / \__/ \_/ | \| \__/ \______________ pny...@ormail.co.uk.
Carl Flippin
They don't do much better with Spanish. I have a relative who married
into the name Vallejo. They pronounce it 'Valley-Joe'. Makes my eye
twitch every time.
--
Carl Flippin | Some people, when confronted with a problem,
ca...@photocarl.org | think "I know, I'll use regular expressions".
http://www.photocarl.org | Now they have two problems. - jwz
Pat Durkin
news:537f2123-ef89-493c...@v16g2000prc.googlegroups.com
Get a bit of education, George and Carl, will you? The French and the
Germans have been trading the same spaces for centuries, and have severe
problems pronouncing the names of many of those towns correctly. So. .
.they gave up the struggle and spell them in their own ways.
Koln/Cologne, for just one.
( From first page in Google search "Cologne, Germany" > Cologne Germany
Travel Essentials - Cologne Profile
Essential travel information for tourists visiting Cologne, Germany
(Koln). Cologne airports,)
I won't blame the stubbornness on either area or nationality or
language. http://tinyurl.com/64c53d
(http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&fkt=3375&fsdt=1089
1&q=Cologne%2C%20Germany&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&
amp;tab=wl)
Map of Germany. Nemmind that Belgium is either Belge or Belgique. Look
at Switzerland. And don't tell me they are variant spellings of
identical correct pronunciations. They reflect the usage of people of
different nations. It is very doubtful that any word in one language is
always pronounced correctly in a foreign tongue.
We in Wisconsin have spellings and pronunciations of words in which the
actual meaning, in French or some indigenous language, has been
corrupted and lost to other than speculation.
Isn't that true of New England towns? Pacific Coastal area?
Ian Jackson
Duncanson (BrE)" <ma...@peterduncanson.net> writes
Phew! I was expecting to find that the American pronunciation was
'macarhber' (cf the discussion about 'timbre'). However, I would say
that neither of the pronunciations given is correct. The first totally
ignores the 're' at the end. The second is pretty close, but maybe the
're' is just a bit too long and too emphasised. Presumably the original
French is with a short 'a' in the middle.
--
Ian
Patok
> On Sat, 15 Nov 2008 02:03:44 -0800 (PST), Pierre de Brouillard
> <paci...@btopenworld.com> wrote:
>
>> http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/macabre
>>
>> Both of these pronounciations are wrong, IMHO! :-D
>>
>> I've *never* heard an American pronounce 'macabre' correctly, but,
>> blessum, they can do lots of other things! :-D
>>
> "macabre" is an English word. It was stolen from French, but when it is used
> by English speakers it is English.
>
> Both those pronunciation are correct for the English word "macabre".
>
pronunciation of 'macabre' in English has been wrong all along. Not that
I've ever had the opportunity to speak it, but if I had, I would
pronounce it like the second variant given by the dictionary, with the
second 'a' pronounced like like the 'a' in "sable".
--
You'd be crazy to e-mail me with the crazy. But leave the div alone.
Hatunen
<ca...@photocarl.org> wrote:
>On 2008-11-15, tony cooper <tony_co...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>> On Sat, 15 Nov 2008 05:43:49 -0800 (PST), geo...@ankerstein.org
>> wrote:
>>
>> My own favorite is a city in my own home state of Indiana:
>> Versailles. Call it anything but "Ver-sales" any people look at you
>> funny.
>>
>They don't do much better with Spanish. I have a relative who married
>into the name Vallejo. They pronounce it 'Valley-Joe'. Makes my eye
>twitch every time.
At a freeway rest stop I once had an Englishman ask me about the
turn off for Jila Bend. In general, because of the large Mixican
population here, Tucsonans are pretty good about approximating
Spanish pronunciations, but we do hear stuff from midwesterners
like "la djawla" for "la Jolla".
--
************* DAVE HATUNEN (hat...@cox.net) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *
Hatunen
<dur...@sbc.com> wrote:
><geo...@ankerstein.org> wrote in message
>news:537f2123-ef89-493c...@v16g2000prc.googlegroups.com
>> On Nov 15, 5:03 am, Pierre de Brouillard <pacif...@btopenworld.com>
>> wrote:
>>> http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/macabre
>>>
>>> Both of these pronounciations are wrong, IMHO! :-D
>>>
>>> I've *never* heard an American pronounce 'macabre' correctly, but,
>>> blessum, they can do lots of other things! :-D
>>>
>>> Many Englishmen also struggle with 'macabre' but <brags> *I* can
>>> pronounce it! :-D
>>>
>>> Can you, my little pumpernickels? :-D
>>>
>>> The French have got it down to a tee, lol!
>>>
>>> Pierre from Gascony
>>
>> You should visit the American Mid-West. The pronunciation of
>> various place names of French origin is truly bizarre.
>>
>
>Get a bit of education, George and Carl, will you? The French and the
>Germans have been trading the same spaces for centuries, and have severe
>problems pronouncing the names of many of those towns correctly. So. .
>.they gave up the struggle and spell them in their own ways.
>Koln/Cologne, for just one.
Um. It is not spelled "Koln".
>( From first page in Google search "Cologne, Germany" > Cologne Germany
>Travel Essentials - Cologne Profile
>Essential travel information for tourists visiting Cologne, Germany
>(Koln). Cologne airports,)
> I won't blame the stubbornness on either area or nationality or
>language. http://tinyurl.com/64c53d
>(http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&fkt=3375&fsdt=1089
>1&q=Cologne%2C%20Germany&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&
>amp;tab=wl)
>
>Map of Germany. Nemmind that Belgium is either Belge or Belgique. Look
>at Switzerland. And don't tell me they are variant spellings of
>identical correct pronunciations. They reflect the usage of people of
>different nations. It is very doubtful that any word in one language is
>always pronounced correctly in a foreign tongue.
>
>We in Wisconsin have spellings and pronunciations of words in which the
>actual meaning, in French or some indigenous language, has been
>corrupted and lost to other than speculation.
>
>Isn't that true of New England towns? Pacific Coastal area?
There a lot of Hispanics living along the Pacific Coast and
Spanish pronuciation is approximated fairly well in general. Some
Anglos may say "valley-joe" as noted in another post, but most
Californians will call it "vy-ay-ho" or at worst "val-ay-ho". The
Spanish consonant "ll" isn't always done right, but "j" usually
is.
I won't even begin to ask about the Indian names in the East and
Midwest. We can start with the variant names of the Indian tribe
know as either the Ojibway or Chippewa.
In Ohio there is a suburb of Cleveland named "Piqua" and
pronounced like "pickaway". And of course the Ohio city is
"lime-a" not "Leema"
Here in Tucson, despite the large Hispanic presence, some names
seem a bit odd. There is, for instance, a Pueblo High School;
Town High School, big deal. There is also a Catalina High School
(rather like Catalina island in California). The island in
California is named after Saint Catherine and is fully titled
Santa Catalina Island. But the high school heere is named after
the Catalina Mountains which border the north side of the valley.
But, of course, they're really the Santa Catalina Mountains, but
the only place you usually see or hear the full name is on maps.
We locals usually refer to them as simply "the Catalinas".
There's also a Rincon High School, or Corner High School. it's
named after the Rincon Mountains, or Corner Mountains, but no one
is completely sure how they got that name from early Spanish
explorers.
There's a development down toward the border called "Embarcadero
at Barrio de Tubac". Aside from the mix of Spanish and English in
the name, I'm going WTF? An embarcadero in the desert??!!
There is, by the way, a street on Tucson's north side where the
sign at the corner, where the name ought to be, says "Calle Sin
Nombre". The question is, what is the name of that street?
Nick
"Athel Cornish-Bowden" <acor...@ibsm.cnrs-mrs.fr> wrote in message
news:6o7qpoF...@mid.individual.net...
> On 2008-11-15 11:03:44 +0100, Pierre de Brouillard
> <paci...@btopenworld.com> said:
>
> > http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/macabre
> >
> > Both of these pronounciations are wrong, IMHO!
>
> What has your opinion got to do with it? The right way to pronounce
> "macabre" in American English is the way Americans pronounce it.
LOL, fair enough but say it my way and you'll sound chic! :-)
~
_
>
> Your spelling (and by implication your pronunciation) of
> "pronunciation" is certainly wrong, however.
> [ ... ]
>
Oops - spelt wrong but pronounced right!
~
> > The French have got it down to a tee, lol!
>
> French pronounce the French word "macabre" correctly, but in my
> experience they don't pronounce the English word "macabre" correctly.
>
Now I'm in trouble - I'm assuming the French pronounce 'macabre' like
'fenetre' in respect of the last syllable - so should we English! :-)
Nick
Nick
"Ian Jackson" <ianREMOVET...@g3ohx.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:hHnbSdIW...@g3ohx.demon.co.uk...
That's a good way of putting it, Ian; the last syllable should be 'bruh'
with the 'uh' breathed rather than spoken!
Nick
Nick
<geo...@ankerstein.org> wrote in message
news:537f2123-ef89-493c...@v16g2000prc.googlegroups.com...
~
<g> Tony Curtis once pronounced 'Montmartre' ' Moe mart'!
But I always liked the American 'gee yu teen' (hard 'g') to the English
'giller teen', if you follow!
Nick
Nick
"tony cooper" <tony_co...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:e6mth4pkq5avmfmso...@4ax.com...
<g> And the English call 'Marseilles' 'Mar-sales' unless they're chic! :-)
Nick
Nick
"Dr Peter Young" <pny...@ormail.co.uk> wrote in message
news:3cb2a9fe4...@pnyoung.ormail.co.uk...
> On 15 Nov 2008 tony cooper <tony_co...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> > On Sat, 15 Nov 2008 05:43:49 -0800 (PST), geo...@ankerstein.org
> > wrote:
>
> >>On Nov 15, 5:03 am, Pierre de Brouillard <pacif...@btopenworld.com>
> >>wrote:
> >>> http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/macabre
> >>>
> >>> Both of these pronounciations are wrong, IMHO! :-D
> >>>
> >>> I've *never* heard an American pronounce 'macabre' correctly, but,
> >>> blessum, they can do lots of other things! :-D
> >>>
> >>> Many Englishmen also struggle with 'macabre' but <brags> *I* can
> >>> pronounce it! :-D
> >>>
> >>> Can you, my little pumpernickels? :-D
> >>>
> >>> The French have got it down to a tee, lol!
> >>>
> >>> Pierre from Gascony
> >>
> >>You should visit the American Mid-West. The pronunciation of
> >>various place names of French origin is truly bizarre.
>
> > My own favorite is a city in my own home state of Indiana:
> > Versailles. Call it anything but "Ver-sales" any people look at you
> > funny.
>
> Nothing new there! The WW1 battle of Ypres was always pronounced
> "wipers".
>
LOL
Nick
Chris R
België (not Belge), in Dutch. Belgique in French. Belgien in German.
The Belgian city of Liège (to its French-speaking inhabitants) is variously
signposted nearby as Liège, Luik (in Dutch) or Lüttich (in German - there is
a small German-speaking part of Belgium not far away).
But what that proves about the pronunciation of "macabre", I don't know.
Chris R
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
>
>"Athel Cornish-Bowden" <acor...@ibsm.cnrs-mrs.fr> wrote in message
>news:6o7qpoF...@mid.individual.net...
>> On 2008-11-15 11:03:44 +0100, Pierre de Brouillard
>> <paci...@btopenworld.com> said:
>>
>> > http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/macabre
>> >
>> > Both of these pronounciations are wrong, IMHO!
>>
>> What has your opinion got to do with it? The right way to pronounce
>> "macabre" in American English is the way Americans pronounce it.
>~
>LOL, fair enough but say it my way and you'll sound chic! :-)
Is that "chic" pronounced "sheek" or pronounced "chick"? Both can be heard in
BrE.
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
And Armentières was pronounced "armon-tears" as the song _Mademoiselle from
Armentieres_.
Lyrics and scratchy 1915 audio at:
http://www.firstworldwar.com/audio/mademoisellefromarmentieres.htm
Athel Cornish-Bowden
> [ ... ]
> ~
> <g> And the English call 'Marseilles' 'Mar-sales' unless they're chic! :-)
You're about half a century out of date. Hardly anyone (in the UK)
calls it that any more. My father did, but he would have had his 100th
birthday 10 days ago if he were still around, so he's hardly an example
of how modern English is pronounced. It's a name I hear a lot, because
I live there, and I can't remember the last time I heard it pronounced
the way you say. For example, the check-in people at Gatwick say
"Mar-say", with more stress on the second syllable than it would have
in French. The final s is in the process of disappearing from the
spelling, but it hasn't completely gone yet.
--
athel
Athel Cornish-Bowden
> On Sat, 15 Nov 2008 07:32:44 -0800, Carl Flippin
> <ca...@photocarl.org> wrote:
>
>> On 2008-11-15, tony cooper <tony_co...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>>> On Sat, 15 Nov 2008 05:43:49 -0800 (PST), geo...@ankerstein.org
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> My own favorite is a city in my own home state of Indiana:
>>> Versailles. Call it anything but "Ver-sales" any people look at you
>>> funny.
>>>
>> They don't do much better with Spanish. I have a relative who married
>> into the name Vallejo. They pronounce it 'Valley-Joe'. Makes my eye
>> twitch every time.
>
> At a freeway rest stop I once had an Englishman ask me about the
> turn off for Jila Bend. In general, because of the large Mixican
> population here,
Shortly after I went to California in 1967, I asked someone about the
San Joe-a-kin valley, to great amusement. However, it's not too
surprising: most English people are taught nothing about Spanish at
school.
> Tucsonans are pretty good about approximating
> Spanish pronunciations, but we do hear stuff from midwesterners
> like "la djawla" for "la Jolla".
The California town of Vallejo is pronounced "ValAyo" by the Anglos who
live there. At least, that's how my former wife, who was born in
Vallejo, pronounced it.
"Approximating Spanish pronunciation" is about right, so far as
California is concerned. ll is sometimes more or less right, as in La
Jolla, sometimes not, as in Vallejo. j is often ignored completely, as
in San Jose, but sometimes is more or less right, again as in La Jolla
(though it's more of an English h than a Spanish j). The vowels are
mostly more or less right, except in "Los Angeles", which sounds to my
ears as "L'sanjlus', and "Alameda" (the e is completely anglicized),
and in general unstressed vowels are converted into schwas -- San Jose,
San Francisco, Merced.
--
athel
geo...@ankerstein.org
OK, I'll bite.
How do you think I should pronounce "macabre"?
I pronounce it "ma-cab", with a little extra stress on the
first syllable.
GFH
Pat Durkin
news:kMOdnZH6Ws2yooLU...@posted.plusnet
>> Nemmind that Belgium is either Belge or Belgique.
>
> België (not Belge), in Dutch. Belgique in French. Belgien in German.
The map wasn't done in Dutch, but, if I recall, in some version of
Deutsch, with notations in other languages.
>
> The Belgian city of Liège (to its French-speaking inhabitants) is
> variously signposted nearby as Liège, Luik (in Dutch) or Lüttich (in
> German - there is a small German-speaking part of Belgium not far
> away).
Thanks. Another proof of my point.
>
> But what that proves about the pronunciation of "macabre", I don't
> know.
The point was simply to point out that it is not only in the US Midwest
that variations in pronunciation of words by speakers of different
languages occur. I replied to comments by ankerstein and Gilpin.
(Spelling? Well, Dave H comments on my lack of the umlaut in Koln. I
know it's supposed to be over the "o", but couldn't see it in the first
Google page so I could steal it, so I deliberately copied/pasted a blurb
that shows common US typography. Again, the idea was to indicate the
variation in pronunciation. Those, of course, have lead to variations
in spelling, especially in Europe.)
Nick
"Peter Duncanson (BrE)" <ma...@peterduncanson.net> wrote in message
news:slath49bl54ohmc9n...@4ax.com...
> On Sat, 15 Nov 2008 02:03:44 -0800 (PST), Pierre de Brouillard
> <paci...@btopenworld.com> wrote:
>
> >http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/macabre
> >
> >Both of these pronounciations are wrong, IMHO! :-D
> >
> >I've *never* heard an American pronounce 'macabre' correctly, but,
> >blessum, they can do lots of other things! :-D
> >
> "macabre" is an English word. It was stolen from French, but when it is
used
> by English speakers it is English.
>
> Both those pronunciation are correct for the English word "macabre".
>
Mais non pour Angleterre, Monsieur Duncanson! :-)
Both my Concise OED and my Collins French Gem Dictionary give the
pronunciation as 'ahbr' for the last syllable of 'macabre'!
QED
Nick aka Pierre de Brouillard (Foggy Pete)
Adam Funk
> My own favorite is a city in my own home state of Indiana:
> Versailles. Call it anything but "Ver-sales" any people look at you
> funny.
Cf. Buena Vista /'bjun@ 'vIst@/ and Montevideo /'mAnt@"vIdioU/ in
Virginia.
--
hmmmm: sounds like the same DLL hell problem my cousin had. try
deleting all DLLs in your Windows/system32 directory and see what
happens. (Bryce Utting)
Nick
<geo...@ankerstein.org> wrote in message
news:20f53eba-15fb-4d92...@e38g2000prn.googlegroups.com...
OK, I'll bite.
~
LOL - As you wish, but the Concise OED way with 'ahbr' for the last syllable
is the best way, IMHO!
Nick
Alan Jones
That's all similarly true of "Lyon/s". I still use the s spellings, but
never said "lions" and with regret abandoned "mah-sales" some years ago. A
sound general rule, I think, is never to attempt an authentic French or
Spanish pronunciation of names when speaking English: the required vocal
contortion for a single word is too affected. A sort of approximation, such
as "mah-SAY", seems proper, unless there is an old-established English
version such as "quick-s't" for Quixote or "djoo-'n" for Don Juan
("kee-hoh-tay" and "hwahn" make me wince). A curious error is pronouncing
"Munich" with a pseudo-German u-umlaut and guttural ch, though "Munich"
isn't a German name. (By the way, did the OQ ever tell us what he regards as
the correct English pronunciation of "macabre"?)
Alan Jones
Tom P
> http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/macabre
>
> Both of these pronounciations are wrong, IMHO! :-D
>
> I've *never* heard an American pronounce 'macabre' correctly, but,
> blessum, they can do lots of other things! :-D
>
> Many Englishmen also struggle with 'macabre' but <brags> *I* can
> pronounce it! :-D
>
> Can you, my little pumpernickels? :-D
>
> The French have got it down to a tee, lol!
>
> Pierre from Gascony
Ok - I recall the time this French guy told me we had to visit this pub
where they had this fantastic "Mackavee" beer, with the emphasis on
"Mack", veery famous Eengleesh Beer..
John Varela
(in article
<537f2123-ef89-493c...@v16g2000prc.googlegroups.com>):
> You should visit the American Mid-West. The pronunciation of
> various place names of French origin is truly bizarre.
If the French had won the colonial wars in North America we'd be
laughing at how they mispronounce English place names like Worcester,
Princeton, and Newport News. But it didn't work out that way, did it?
Ditto for American mispronunciation of Spanish place names.
--
John Varela
Trade NEW lamps for OLD for email.
geo...@ankerstein.org
> On Sat, 15 Nov 2008 08:43:49 -0500, geor...@ankerstein.org wrote
> (in article
> <537f2123-ef89-493c-9867-c5c3c0b91...@v16g2000prc.googlegroups.com>):
>
> > You should visit the American Mid-West. The pronunciation of
> > various place names of French origin is truly bizarre.
>
> If the French had won the colonial wars in North America we'd be
> laughing at how they mispronounce English place names like Worcester,
> Princeton, and Newport News. But it didn't work out that way, did it?
No. And it did not work out so well for George III.
How do you pronounce "Beaufort", Norfolk, Newark? All are pronounced
differently in different sections of the USA. In fact, no one
specifies the state
when pronouncing "Beaufort". Everyone (who counts) knows whether you
mean Beaufort, NC, or Beaufort, SC.
GFH
geo...@ankerstein.org
> <geor...@ankerstein.org> wrote in message
HO are the operative words.
GFH
Bob Cunningham
wrote:
>On Nov 16, 4:45 pm, John Varela <OLDla...@verizon.net> wrote:
>> On Sat, 15 Nov 2008 08:43:49 -0500, geor...@ankerstein.org wrote
>> (in article
>> <537f2123-ef89-493c-9867-c5c3c0b91...@v16g2000prc.googlegroups.com>):
>>
>> > You should visit the American Mid-West. The pronunciation of
>> > various place names of French origin is truly bizarre.
>>
>> If the French had won the colonial wars in North America we'd be
>> laughing at how they mispronounce English place names like Worcester,
>> Princeton, and Newport News. But it didn't work out that way, did it?
>
>No. And it did not work out so well for George III.
Anyway, after a French word has become an accepted part of English,
it's no longer a French word but an English word. Then giving it the
French pronunciation instead of the accepted English pronunciation
when speaking English would be an error.
Some originally Spanish names of cities in California have their
accepted English pronunciations that are quite different from the
Spanish. Pronouncing them in the Spanish way would again be
erroneous. For example, try pronouncing "Los Angeles"
[,loUs'A;njeI,leIs] ("lohs AHN hay lace") or "Sepulveda"
[,seIpu:l'veId@] ("Say pool VAY duh") and see how many Angelenos
sneer.
Correct English pronunciations: [lA:s'&nzh(@)l@s], [s@'pVlv@d@].
--
Bob Cunningham, Southern California, USA. Western American English
Hatunen
The umlaut has a direct effect on the pronunciation in German,
and for those whose keyboards are umlaut impaired, like me, the
use of the inserted "e" in the Austrian style seems to work just
fine. I know the DueutscheBahn web pages with the schedule
searcher have no problem with "Koeln" nor with "Muenchen."
Pierre de Brouillard
LOL - ho ho ho!
Foggy Pete with a French flavor
Pierre de Brouillard
Je n'ai pas compris, mon petit! :-)
Pierre
Pierre de Brouillard
wrote:
> On Sat, 15 Nov 2008 21:00:27 -0000, "Nick" <pacif...@btopenworld.com> wrote:
>
> >"Athel Cornish-Bowden" <acorn...@ibsm.cnrs-mrs.fr> wrote in message
> >news:6o7qpoF...@mid.individual.net...
> >> On 2008-11-15 11:03:44 +0100, Pierre de Brouillard
>
> >> >http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/macabre
>
> >> > Both of these pronounciations are wrong, IMHO!
>
> >> What has your opinion got to do with it? The right way to pronounce
> >> "macabre" in American English is the way Americans pronounce it.
> >~
> >LOL, fair enough but say it my way and you'll sound chic! :-)
>
> Is that "chic" pronounced "sheek" or pronounced "chick"? Both can be heard in
> BrE.
>
>
The French way, par naturellement! :-)
Neek
Athel Cornish-Bowden
>
> "Athel Cornish-Bowden" <acor...@ibsm.cnrs-mrs.fr> wrote in message
> news:6oaajkF...@mid.individual.net...
>> On 2008-11-15 22:09:13 +0100, "Nick" <paci...@btopenworld.com> said:
>>
>>> [ ... ]
>>
>>> ~
>>> <g> And the English call 'Marseilles' 'Mar-sales' unless they're chic! :-)
>>
>> You're about half a century out of date. Hardly anyone (in the UK)
>> calls it that any more. My father did, but he would have had his 100th
>> birthday 10 days ago if he were still around, so he's hardly an example
>> of how modern English is pronounced. It's a name I hear a lot, because
>> I live there, and I can't remember the last time I heard it pronounced
>> the way you say. For example, the check-in people at Gatwick say
>> "Mar-say", with more stress on the second syllable than it would have
>> in French. The final s is in the process of disappearing from the
>> spelling, but it hasn't completely gone yet.
>
> That's all similarly true of "Lyon/s".
But less so (or more so, depending on which end of the spectrum you
look from). For reasons that I don't understand, Lyon has gone much
further along the road to s-lessness than Marseilles has.
> I still use the s spellings, but never said "lions" and with regret
> abandoned "mah-sales" some years ago. A sound general rule, I think, is
> never to attempt an authentic French or Spanish pronunciation of names
> when speaking English: the required vocal contortion for a single word
> is too affected.
Absolutely right, though Lyon is a problem. If you pronounce it in one
syllable as the French do you may not be understood. If you pronounce
it the old way as "lions" you might not be understood nowadays either.
So I think most people fall back on a vague approximation to a French
pronunciation with the y and the on forming separate syllables -- with
stress on a syllable that isn't even there in French.
> A sort of approximation, such as "mah-SAY", seems proper, unless there
> is an old-established English version such as "quick-s't" for Quixote
> or "djoo-'n" for Don Juan ("kee-hoh-tay" and "hwahn" make me wince).
Or, of course, Paris. Pronouncing it as ParrEE (as in "Gay ParrEE") is
just vulgar. In principle I agree with you about Spanish, but that
poses special problems for me because my wife is a Spanish speaker but
we usually speak between the two of us in English (her English being
much better than my Spanish). As a result I tend to give Spanish names
their Spanish values when speaking with her and don't always remember
to say, for example, "chilly" for Chile when speaking with other
people, and for places that I've only come to know in the past 20
years, like Tenerife, I don't necessarily know what the usual English
pronunciation is ("tenner reef", I suppose).
> A curious error is pronouncing "Munich" with a pseudo-German u-umlaut
> and guttural ch, though "Munich" isn't a German name. (By the way, did
> the OQ ever tell us what he regards as the correct English
> pronunciation of "macabre"?)
Looking at some of his other contributions (and noting that he and
"Nick" are apparently the same person) I now wonder if he was trying to
make a serious point at all.
--
athel
Pat Durkin
news:d432i4h4maim50cv4...@4ax.com
Well, fukit. I showed that "Koln" is a standard spelling, at least in
some US typography.
Within my circle of acquaintances I have people whose name is variously
spelled "Schroeder,(pr shrayder, shroyder, shrowder) and Schroder".
Both, I believe, came from the German, and probably from
"Schro(umlaut)der". But, you know, we don't keep all the little peaks
and valleys in the old German font, either.
Cece
> On Sun, 16 Nov 2008 14:25:15 -0800 (PST), geor...@ankerstein.org
Yes, the English word "homage" has suddenly changed its pronunciation
from /'Am 'Idj/ to /o 'mAZ/. As spoken by every pro on the TV screen
(actors and newspersons). It's been a good English word since Middle
English began; why are they giving it back to the French?
Have you noticed that British pronuncations of words taken from French
are farther from the French than the American pronuncations are?
Garage, homage, chauffeur, and more.
Ian Jackson
<d9dce277-0185-47ba...@z28g2000prd.googlegroups.com>,
Cece <ceceliaa...@yahoo.com> writes
The question is, is this because the British have had more time to
modify the French pronunciations, or is it that we are pronouncing the
words more like the old French way? For example, presumably all those
'redundant' letters in modern-day French would once have been
pronounced.
--
Ian
Tom P
Glenn Knickerbocker
> Well, fukit. I showed that "Koln" is a standard spelling, at least in
> some US typography.
If you follow the link on the page you quoted, you'll see it spelled
with an umlaut on the referenced page on the same site. Some standard.
ŹR
Pat Durkin
news:492200AC...@bestweb.net
The page? We don't need no stinkin' pages! I cited the blurb.
Nick
"Athel Cornish-Bowden" <acor...@ibsm.cnrs-mrs.fr> wrote in message
news:6oaajkF...@mid.individual.net...
>
> > [ ... ]
>
> > ~
> > <g> And the English call 'Marseilles' 'Mar-sales' unless they're chic!
:-)
>
> You're about half a century out of date.
Correct - I remember it from the French TV show 'Christobel and Company'
shown on the BBC circa 1961!
Nick
Nick
"Tom P" <tomb...@freenet.dd> wrote in message
news:6oe5d7F...@mid.individual.net...
ROFL - I learned what 'merde' meant when Dudley Moore was rather disparaging
about French Golden Delicious apples!
Nick
Glenn Knickerbocker
>The page? We don't need no stinkin' pages! I cited the blurb.
Yes, and the blurb was an automatic summary of another page. That's not
typography, that's computer indexing. It's not the typographers' fault
that the code page designers didn't care about the difference between an
umlaut and a dieresis.
http://users.bestweb.net/~notr "The notion of objecting to a fake Web
ŹR site on the grounds that it might possibly incite other people
to do bad things is so dangerous to our constitutionally protected
freedoms that it must never be mentioned, even in jest." --Matt McIrvin
Athel Cornish-Bowden
> [ ... ]
> Have you noticed that British pronuncations of words taken from French
> are farther from the French than the American pronuncations are?
> Garage, homage, chauffeur, and more.
I'm not sure I agree about garage. The pronunciation garridge was
certainly around when I was a child, but it wasn't standard. The
pronunciation I was taught (and still use, as I think do most educated
BrE speakers) had a French -age but, of course, an English r (English
people can't do a French r) and an English a in the first syllable.
Most of that is true of the AmE pronunciation, but, true to their
conviction that all French words are very heavily stressed on the last
syllable, they convert the first a to a schwa and put all the stress on
the second a. In BrE garage is one of the few words to have no obvious
stress pattern, and in that sense is much closer to the French
pronunciation than the AmE garage.
I'll allow you homage and chauffeur, though.
--
athel
remote...@gmail.com
> http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/macabre
>
> Both of these pronounciations are wrong, IMHO! :-D
>
> I've *never* heard an American pronounce 'macabre' correctly, but,
> blessum, they can do lots of other things! :-D
>
> Many Englishmen also struggle with 'macabre' but <brags> *I* can
> pronounce it! :-D
>
> Can you, my little pumpernickels? :-D
>
> The French have got it down to a tee, lol!
>
> Pierre from Gascony
occam
windows long after the offender has gone away. Do you realise you are
responding to a post from Nov 2008?
iCuss