PALL MALL British pronunciation?
Bernd Morlock
a former teacher of mine is interested in the British English
pronunciation of the cigarette brand name PALL MALL.
1. Does the British English pronunciation follow the American example or
does it rather sound like the rendering of the London street Pall Mall?
2. Are there any references?
3. Where else could I find help?
Thanks in advance.
Bernd Morlock
Mark Wallace
> Dear list members,
>
> a former teacher of mine is interested in the British English
> pronunciation of the cigarette brand name PALL MALL.
>
> 1. Does the British English pronunciation follow the American
> example or does it rather sound like the rendering of the London
> street Pall Mall?
I can't speak for anyone else, but that's how I'd pronounce it.
> 2. Are there any references?
Doubtful. Have you visited the producer's website?
> 3. Where else could I find help?
There are lots of organisations that will help you quit smoking, if
that's any help.
--
Mark Wallace
-----------------------------------------------------
For the intelligent approach to nasty humour, visit:
The Anglo-American Humour (humor) Site
http://humorpages.virtualave.net/mainmenu.htm
-----------------------------------------------------
Jim Lawton
<bernd....@tesionmail.de> wrote:
>Dear list members,
>
>a former teacher of mine is interested in the British English
>pronunciation of the cigarette brand name PALL MALL.
>
>1. Does the British English pronunciation follow the American example or
>does it rather sound like the rendering of the London street Pall Mall?
Well, how an English person might pronounce Pall Mall, street or
cigarette, would depend on there accent. I come from the north, and I
would use short a for both words, as in cat. Others might say Pawll
Mawll, or almost anything in between ..
Jim
Alec Owen
"Bernd Morlock" <bernd....@tesionmail.de> wrote in message
news:3DA559A4...@tesionmail.de...
> Dear list members,
>
> a former teacher of mine is interested in the British English
> pronunciation of the cigarette brand name PALL MALL.
>
> 1. Does the British English pronunciation follow the American example or
> does it rather sound like the rendering of the London street Pall Mall?
> 2. Are there any references?
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary
The above on-line dictionary has a pronunciation feature and gives two
separate
versions. If one goes by the etymology, it would seem that the "a" should
have a short a sound as in
"attack".
In the US we seem to favor (favour) a corrupted poll moll with the "a"
sounding more like the "o"
in "Polly". The English language is tuff enuf without the Umuricns chainjing
things ;o}
A Owen
Pat Durkin
"Alec Owen" <ao...@phaedrav.com> wrote in message
news:3da5e859$1...@audacity.velocet.net...
I don't know about calling it a corruption so much as a simplification.
Pronunciation: "pel-'mel, "pal-'mal, US often "pol-'mol
My brother smokes them. He calls them "pol-'mols". This is in line
with the "US often" version in M-W, but also with the most common
pronunciation of "mall" as in "shopping":
"Once you've seen a mall you've seen 'em all".
4 entries found for pall.
Main Entry: 1pall
Pronunciation: 'pol
Function: verb
Etymology: Middle English, short for appallen to become pale --
(and)
Main Entry: 2pall
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, cloak, mantle, from Old English pæll, from
Latin pallium
Date: 14th century
...
2 a : a square of linen usually stiffened with cardboard that is used to
cover the chalice b (1) : a heavy cloth draped over a coffin (2) : a
coffin especially when holding a body
3 : something that covers or conceals; especially : an overspreading
element that produces an effect of gloom <a pall of thick black smoke>
Alec Owen
"Jim Lawton" <jiml...@tabbytail.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:3da57146...@news.ntlworld.com...
> On Thu, 10 Oct 2002 12:42:44 +0200, Bernd Morlock
> <bernd....@tesionmail.de> wrote:
>
> >Dear list members,
> >
> >a former teacher of mine is interested in the British English
> >pronunciation of the cigarette brand name PALL MALL.
> >
> >1. Does the British English pronunciation follow the American example or
> >does it rather sound like the rendering of the London street Pall Mall?
>
> Well, how an English person might pronounce Pall Mall, street or
> cigarette, would depend on there accent. I come from the north, and I
> would use short a for both words, as in cat. Others might say Pawll
> Mawll, or almost anything in between ..
>
> Jim
>
>
mawling.
Aren't you glad you didn't say that?
A Owen.
meirman
<p...@hotmail.com> posted:
>
>Main Entry: 1pall
>Pronunciation: 'pol
>Function: verb
>Etymology: Middle English, short for appallen to become pale --
>(and)
>Main Entry: 2pall
>Function: noun
>Etymology: Middle English, cloak, mantle, from Old English pæll, from
>Latin pallium
>Date: 14th century
>...
>2 a : a square of linen usually stiffened with cardboard that is used to
>cover the chalice b (1) : a heavy cloth draped over a coffin (2) : a
Well that explains where "cast a pall over things" comes from. Never
knew. I thought it was a shade of darkness. Like it was related to
pale. I think I'm going to be reluctant to use it now because it is
far stronger than I thought.
>coffin especially when holding a body
>3 : something that covers or conceals; especially : an overspreading
>element that produces an effect of gloom <a pall of thick black smoke>
>
s/ meirman If you are emailing me please
say if you are posting the same response.
Born west of Pittsburgh Pa. 10 years
Indianapolis, 7 years
Chicago, 6 years
Brooklyn NY 12 years
Baltimore 17 years
meirman
<bernd....@tesionmail.de> posted:
>Dear list members,
>
>a former teacher of mine is interested in the British English
>pronunciation of the cigarette brand name PALL MALL.
>
>1. Does the British English pronunciation follow the American example or
>does it rather sound like the rendering of the London street Pall Mall?
You don't say what that is.
In the US it is pronounced Pall Mall, outstanding, and they are mild.
Or Pol Mol. I don't really hear a difference between Polly and the
Washington Mall. Or between doll and fall.
On the other hand, other US uses of pall mall are pronounced pell
mell. Go figure.
>2. Are there any references?
>3. Where else could I find help?
>
>Thanks in advance.
>
>Bernd Morlock
Alan Jones
The best - perhaps the only - reference for the cigarette brand name would
be the company itself, the Brown & Williamson Corporation. Perhaps different
pronunications are preferred for the market in the two countries. Since
cigarette advertising is banned on British radio and TV one doesn'r hear the
name spoken except by people buying that brand, who themselves say it as
they have heard it from other smokers or shop assistants - I shouldn't be
surprised to hear all sorts of local pronunciations adopted simply by
guesswork from the spelling.
J.C.Wells' "Longman Pronouncing Dictionary" 2nd edition, 2000, is the most
recent and (in my opinion) the most trustworthy British authority. For the
street, he gives the modern version of "Pall Mall" with a's as in "Sally",
but mentions the 'pell mell' pronunciation as an obsolete pronunciation. He
also gives this "Sally" vowel for "The Mall", the processional approach to
Buckingham Palace, and for various other London streetnames such as Chiswick
Mall (AmE speakers: please note that Chiswick is said as "chizzik"). For the
shopping-centre sense, he gives "mawl", which I suppose may be borrowed from
the US where such places were first built - we originally had "arcades" for
covered shopping, some of which still exist in London, Bath, Bristol and
other cities. He mentions that some people insisted on rhyming mall almost
with "moll", not a version included in the usage survey questionnaire,
though one of the previous contributors to this thread mentioned it as an
AmE variant.
Alan Jones
mb
>Main Entry: 1pall
That explains pall, but not the entirely unrelated pall-mall or Pall
Mall. The first, as approximate translation of helter-skelter, is a
direct Fr. borrowing from pe^le-me^le (hence the, for some people
obsolete, pronunciation, or the permanence of closed a); the second's
Mall is the well-known mall from Fr. mail, a generally tree-lined
promenade, which seems to have got its name from jocular analogy.
Pat Durkin
"mb" <azy...@mail.com> wrote in message
news:9cc8f152.02101...@posting.google.com...
I wonder at your source for this "jocular analogy". The M-W etymology
for Pall Mall sounds more complete, with the "mall" being a kind of pun
for mallet and the aisle in which the game was played. Sounds like a
kind of croquet.
The original questioner asked about the cigarette brand. The
pronunciation given first ( 1 )in M-W is one I have only heard on radio
ads for the cigarette. The second sounds like what I would expect the
British to say when reading the name of the brand, and the last is the
more frequent sound as I have heard it among some people in the US,
where there is another variant which has been expressed in this thread:
"paul maul". The spelling has never to my knowledge referred to
helter-skelter, while the pronunciation, "pel-'mel" in M-W is the same
as the pronunciation of the expression "pell-mell"(2)
(1) Main Entry: pall-mall
Pronunciation: "pel-'mel, "pal-'mal, US often "pol-'mol
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle French pallemaille, from Italian pallamaglio, from
palla ball (of Germanic origin; akin to Old High German balla ball) +
maglio mallet, from Latin malleus -- more at BALL, MAUL
Date: 1598
: a 17th century game in which each player attempts to drive a wooden
ball with a mallet down an alley and through a raised ring in as few
strokes as possible; also : the alley in which it is played
(2)Main Entry: pell-mell
Pronunciation: "pel-'mel
Function: adverb
Etymology: Middle French pelemele
Date: 1596
1 : in mingled confusion or disorder
2 : in confused haste
- pell-mell adjective or noun
Alec Owen
"Pat Durkin" <p...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:uqbum9l...@corp.supernews.com...
Roberta Davies
First, Pall Mall cigarettes are not sold in Britain. (Oh, I suppose
there might be an importer somewhere in London; don't jump down my
throat about it.) So any Brit seeing and saying the brand name would
pronounce it in the same way as the street.
Second, to quote someone whose name I can't recall, the street name is
pronounced so that both words rhyme with "pal", unless you're rich
enough and posh enough to live there, in which case it's pronounced so
that both words rhyme with "maul".
British shopping malls are a recent import from America and the word is
usually pronounced as in America, similar to "maul" though with a
shorter "a"; some pronounce it to rhyme with "pal". Much depends on
regional accent, on both sides of the Pond; where I grew up (US Midwest)
no distinction would be made between (among) "mall", "maul", and "moll".
Robbie
Peter Duncanson
<roberta...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
>First, Pall Mall cigarettes are not sold in Britain.
I am not a smoker but I think they used to be some years (decades?) ago.
--
Peter D.
UK
(posting from a.e.u)
Mark Wallace
> Bernd Morlock wrote:
>>
>> Dear list members,
>>
>> a former teacher of mine is interested in the British English
>> pronunciation of the cigarette brand name PALL MALL.
>>
>> 1. Does the British English pronunciation follow the
>> American example or does it rather sound like the rendering of
>> the London street Pall Mall? 2. Are there any references?
>> 3. Where else could I find help?
>
> First, Pall Mall cigarettes are not sold in Britain. (Oh, I
> suppose there might be an importer somewhere in London; don't
> jump down my throat about it.)
I'm not throat-jumping, but specialised tobacco shops (of which
there is at least one in most towns -- they're the shops where you
expect to bump into Sherlock Holmes) stock them, and just about
every other brand of US cigarettes -- I quite like 'Lark', myself.
Dr Robin Bignall
<mwallace...@dse.nl> wrote:
>Roberta Davies wrote:
>> Bernd Morlock wrote:
>>>
>>> Dear list members,
>>>
>>> a former teacher of mine is interested in the British English
>>> pronunciation of the cigarette brand name PALL MALL.
>>>
>>> 1. Does the British English pronunciation follow the
>>> American example or does it rather sound like the rendering of
>>> the London street Pall Mall? 2. Are there any references?
>>> 3. Where else could I find help?
>>
>> First, Pall Mall cigarettes are not sold in Britain. (Oh, I
>> suppose there might be an importer somewhere in London; don't
>> jump down my throat about it.)
>
>I'm not throat-jumping, but specialised tobacco shops (of which
>there is at least one in most towns -- they're the shops where you
>expect to bump into Sherlock Holmes) stock them, and just about
>every other brand of US cigarettes -- I quite like 'Lark', myself.
There used to be two brands of Pall Mall twenty or so years ago. The
American version came in deep red packets (unfiltered) and gold packets
(filtered). They were super king-size long before any European cigarettes,
and were my favourite 'carry-around' cigarettes (as opposed to
'roll-your-own'). The packets were made of paper, not flip-tops. The
filters were white. They were very smooth.
The other kind was in flip-tops, white with red printing, ordinary sized,
made in Europe, and quite inferior. The filters were brown. I only ever
bought a couple of packets, and hated them. British cigarettes are too dry
and rough, IMO.
I've not seen either in even specialised tobacco shops for years. That's
why I changed long ago to Kent, which are also no longer available here. I
heard a rumour that they were no longer made. American cigarettes available
in Europe that are carried by my tobacconist are actually made in the EU,
according to their labels, and little resemble the real things.
--
wrmst rgrds
Robin