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Proper Pronunciation or lah-dee-dah

cdgalwegian

I think the tide has turned with the pronunciation of Renault; it was mostly pronounced Renawlt, but now appears to be mainly Renoh. But what about Peugeot? Are we still embarrassed to pronounce it as it should- Puh-zho, instead of Pew-jo?

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Shlippery

Lidl. Now there's a real culprit.

sbsquarepants

cdgalwegian wrote: »

I think the tide has turned with the pronunciation of Renault; it was mostly pronounced Renawlt, but now appears to be mainly Renoh. But what about Peugeot? Are we still embarrassed to pronounce it as it should- Puh-zho, instead of Pew-jo?

What about Per-zho?

I'm not sure where it comes from but I hear people say it.

cdgalwegian

Vita nova wrote: »

The title of the thread is a little bit ironic considering pronunciation is spelt/pronounced pronounciation. However, it is spelt correctly in the body of the post.

p.s. well spotted.

Vita nova

cdgalwegian wrote: »

That's just poor spelling. Now that you point it out, I do remember feeling there was something odd about it!;)
The world's worst self proof-reader.

Don't worry about it, I've spelt it incorrectly before myself, as have many others.

cdgalwegian

sbsquarepants wrote: »

What about Per-zho?

I'm not sure where it comes from but I hear people say it.

I would think that's got English roots. A successful Irish way of mangling pronounciation (;)) midway between bog and posh. An Irish solution to an Irish (non) problem.

Lefty Bicek

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

Most people can't pronounce English words properly so I wouldn't be concerned with French pronunciations just yet.

You're not overly concerned about German pronunciation either, I see...

Yurt2

gerrybbadd wrote: »

Its Wah Way

It's actually not. The first character in the name 华为 (Huawei) is probably best rendered in romanized letters as hwa, with a definite h sound - but this is not a natural combination of sounds in English so foreigners of all stripes mangle it. The last couple of years the company have had a campaign to pronounce it Wah Way as they reckon it is the best approximation they can get non-Chinese to pronounce consistently.

This campaign has been mocked by both Chinese and linguists alike, as depending on how you pronounce 'wa', the name can come out sounding like 'socks achievement' or 'baby achievement' in Mandarin.

The campaign was probably concocted by some ad-agency in New York. So in the attempt of trying to look clever and mocking Biddy from Longford trying to get her tongue around what is a difficult name for 99% of people, you're actually mangling it worse than her.

cdgalwegian

Yurt! wrote: »

It's actually not. The first character in the name 华为 (Huawei) is probably best rendered in romanized letters as hwa, with a definite h sound - but this is not a natural combination of sounds in English so foreigners of all stripes mangle it. The last couple of years the company have had a campaign to pronounce it Wah Way as they reckon it is the best approximation they can get non-Chinese to pronounce consistently.

This campaign has been mocked by both Chinese and linguists alike, as depending on how you pronounce 'wa', the name can come out sounding like 'socks achievement' or 'baby achievement' in Mandarin.

The campaign was probably concocted by some ad-agency in New York. So in the attempt of trying to look clever and mocking Biddy from Longford trying to get her tongue around what is a difficult name for 99% of people, you're actually mangling it worse than her.

I learnt basic pǔtōnghuà 20 years ago; the ‘hwa’ sound is dead easy; no more difficult than when somebody is learning the basics of a guttural language, such as Spanish or German. But ya gots ta dumb down for the masses. Money talks, but here- talks is money.

Yurt2

cdgalwegian wrote: »

I learnt basic pǔtōnghuà 20 years ago; the ‘hwa’ sound is dead easy; no more difficult than when somebody is learning the basics of a guttural language, such as Spanish or German. But ya gots ta dumb down for the masses. Money talks, but here- talks is money.

True, if you sit down and have someone explain the pinyin to you, it's not all that hard to pronounce - but most consumers aren't going to do that, so the 'hua' as it's presented to them is not a natural combination of sounds one would make in English (and many other languages).

Hence 'Wah Way'; which, if you said it to a native Chinese speaker, they wouldn't necessarily know what you're on about.

Hyundai suffers from a similar affliction, it's poorly rendered in Roman letters, and how non-Koreans pronounce it doesn't correspond to how it is in Korean.

Peregrinus

Yurt! wrote: »

It's actually not. The first character in the name 华为 (Huawei) is probably best rendered in romanized letters as hwa, with a definite h sound - but this is not a natural combination of sounds in English so foreigners of all stripes mangle it. The last couple of years the company have had a campaign to pronounce it Wah Way as they reckon it is the best approximation they can get non-Chinese to pronounce consistently . . .

"Hw" is a common sound in English; we meet it in what, why, when, where, which. SFAIK it's pretty close to the sound used by a Chinese speaker in the name of this company, though I'm open to correction by someone who actuallty speaks the language.

The thing is, while it's a common sound in Hiberno-English it's largely missing in many varieties of British English and most varieties of American English where the pronunciation of "why", for example, is the same as the name of the letter 'Y', and "what" and "watt" are indistinguishable. I think the Wah Way pronunciation is aimed at that group, but most HibE speakers will have no difficulty in getting a good deal closer to the Chinese pronunciation.

Cee-Jay-Cee

Pherekydes wrote: »

Anyone going to Madge-orca or Eye-beetsa for their hols?

Eye-Beet-za...that one really bugs me. I have a work colleague who has gone there every year for the last 10-12 years and it still puzzles me that how in that time she has never learned how to pronounce the name correctly!!

Peregrinus

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

Eye-Beet-za...that one really bugs me. I have a work colleague who has gone there every year for the last 10-12 years and it still puzzles me that how in that time she has never learned how to pronounce the name correctly!!

If you don't pronounce "Paris" in the French fashion, are you entitled to get sniffy about people who don't pronounce "Ibiza" in the Spanish fashion?

RobMc59

I used to work in Holmes Chapel some years ago and once when the M6 was closed I had to travel to work via back roads.One of the villages I drove through was called lower peover-when I mentioned this it was met with laughter as its pronounced pover and not as its spelt:(

Feisar

People who order "fillay" steaks are knobs.

Peregrinus

Feisar wrote: »

People who order "fillay" steaks are knobs.

Standard pronunciation in US English, but not in other variants of English (or in French).

Pherekydes

Peregrinus wrote: »

If you don't pronounce "Paris" in the French fashion, are you entitled to get sniffy about people who don't pronounce "Ibiza" in the Spanish fashion?

Whataboutery.

Two different languages.

cdgalwegian

Pherekydes wrote: »

Whataboutery.

Two different languages.

Nah, I think it's a valid question. The principle applies to any language; why wouldn't it? I think the 'sniffiness at snootiness' is an interesting dynamic, which ranges in levels depending on context, with lots of changing variables. It's part of the etiquette involved in being aware of the balance between being urbane, and being up one's own arse, expressed in any language.

Yurt2

I was going to make a smartarse comment about how Paris was named after the figure in Greek mythology (I always presumed it was) so we should be deferring to the Greeks for how one should pronounce it. Turns out it was named after a Celtic Iron Age tribe called the Parisii and nothing to do with trouserless Athenians in the nip. There you go now...

EDIT: The Greek pronunciation of Paris (Πάρις - both the mythological figure and the city) appears to be closer to how an English speaker would typically pronounce it. Given that the educated classes of Britain would have been fervent classicists, perhaps that's where the divergent pronunciation in the English language came from; condemned to annoy the French and Francophiles forever more.

Peregrinus

Pherekydes wrote: »

Whataboutery.

Two different languages.

No, that's whataboutery. The fact that the two places are named in different languages is irrelevant. Why should names in one non-English language get anglified pronunciations if names in another non-English language do not?

rogni toyda

google 'merlot pronunciation' ...

Hotblack Desiato

cdgalwegian wrote: »

It's the old Latin word for Romania, so I suppose it depends on that.

You need to find a native Latin speaker, they'll set you right.

It BeeMee wrote: »

It may be a Renoh Cleeoh, but it will always be a Renawlt Four

You mustn't have been listening to the RTE radio ads

Renoh Four
Renon Four
Five Door!
It's the great little car of today!

cdgalwegian

Pherekydes wrote: »

Whataboutery.
Two different languages.

Peregrinus wrote: »

No, that's whataboutery. The fact that the two places are named in different languages is irrelevant. Why should names in one non-English language get anglified pronunciations if names in another non-English language do not?

Jeesh. Took me ages to disentangle the issues at play, while being uncertain if the word was being used in the right context :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
Whataboutism (also known as whataboutery) .... attempts to discredit an opponent's position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument.

Peregrinus rightly points out a hypocrisy in use- in terms of inconsistency- of proper prounciation of foreign words by some people, but I think, Pherekydes, your use of 'whataboutery' unnecessarily invokes deceit, or evasion (such as Trump diverting attention from accusations of cack-handedness for example) in using the word. Bare-faced inconsistency isn’t usually deceitful is it? Or am I reading that wrong?

Hotblack Desiato

Language is inconsistent, and the English language is more inconsistent than many.

cdgalwegian

cdgalwegian wrote: »

It's the old Latin word for Romania, so I suppose it depends on that.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

You need to find a native Latin speaker, they'll set you right.

I ain't goin' near no priest for pronunciation, even if he is pro nun.

As it happens, I know of two lads that set up some company in California somewhere, to use something called an algorithm to search across something called the Information Superhighway, some years back. I'll use that resource if need be.

cdgalwegian

I did a straw poll at work the other day with "How do you pronounce Renault?" After I untied myself and unpicked the lock of the storage room I was locked into, I did a quick calculation: it turned out to be about 50/50 between Renawlt and Renoh.

Church on Tuesday

There's something really odd sounding about an Irish person pronouncing French car brands the correct way with the proper inflections.

Comes off as prat like to me.

Peregrinus

Church on Tuesday wrote: »

There's something really odd sounding about an Irish person pronouncing French car brands the correct way with the proper inflections.

Comes off as prat like to me.

Yeah, but there's a difference between pronouncing it "Renoh", which is common, and pronouncing it as in French, which is rare when speaking English.

railer201

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

Gateaux

Bolleaux

RobMc59

cdgalwegian wrote: »

I did a straw poll at work the other day with "How do you pronounce Renault?" After I untied myself and unpicked the lock of the storage room I was locked into, I did a quick calculation: it turned out to be about 50/50 between Renawlt and Renoh.

How would Johnathan Ross say it?

RobMc59

In the Liverpool area garage is pronounced 'garidge' but can also be pronounced 'gararge'-the same way as Farage