# Brett Favre
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brett-favre/137489
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [November 19, 2002, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brett-favre/137489 "2002-11-19T08:01:55Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@racosun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racosun)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2002, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brett-favre/137489/1 "2002-11-19T08:01:55Z")
How in hell can Brett Favre’s last name be pronounced Farve when it is impossible? How can the English language be manipulated to do such a thing?
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### Author:  [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2002, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brett-favre/137489/2 "2002-11-19T08:04:32Z")
Pronounce “iron”.
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### Author:  [@racosun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racosun)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2002, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brett-favre/137489/3 "2002-11-19T08:08:25Z")
I pronounce iron like it is spelled. If you pronounce it differently, it is most likely an accent or something. Favre is different.
It’s like in the movie “There’s Something About Mary,” how in the hell did you get the beans above the frank? How did you get the “r” ahead of the “v”?
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### Author:  [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2002, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brett-favre/137489/4 "2002-11-19T08:18:24Z")
Are you sure you pronounce it “iron” and not “iern”? The dictionary says the second way is correct only, but I guess you may have some really weird accent I’ve never heard. The only time I heard it pronounced like it’s spelled was on _The Simpsons_ when Rev. Lovejoy says, “And now, please rise for our opening hymn, uh…‘In the Garden of Eden,’ by I. Ron Butterfly.” [3F02] 🙂
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### Author:  [@chula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chula)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2002, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brett-favre/137489/5 "2002-11-19T08:22:12Z")
It’s not English, it’s French. Apparently in some dialect of French in the South, it’s common to pronounce words ending in “-re” that way.
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### Author:  [@Bob\_Scene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bob_Scene)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2002, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brett-favre/137489/6 "2002-11-19T08:26:55Z")
In a song called _The Jezebel Spirit,_ David Byrne and Brian Eno sampled an exorcist who says, “Jezebel! Spirit of destruction! Spirit of grief! I bind you with chains of iron!” He pronounces it i-ron.
As for the OP: I think the problem with Favre’s name started with the French. Those people mispronounce _everything._
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### Author:  [@Lure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lure)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2002, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brett-favre/137489/7 "2002-11-19T08:42:21Z")
[qoute]It’s not English, it’s French. Apparently in some dialect of French in the South, it’s common to pronounce words ending in “-re” that way [/qoute]
Exactly how I pronounce Hors Douvres (sp?) \*oar derve \*
disclaimer-I’m not French nor southern.I fracture other French words,as a lot of American English speakers do.Somehing about that nasal quality of french doesn’t ring true
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### Author:  [@chula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chula)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2002, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brett-favre/137489/8 "2002-11-19T08:54:45Z")
I hadn’t thought of that example, **Lure**. I don’t think that most non-French speakers could manage to pronounce it correctly, which would be something like fah-vruh.
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### Author:  [@XJETGIRLX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XJETGIRLX)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2002, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brett-favre/137489/9 "2002-11-19T13:16:15Z")
Yeah, what they said. My last name is LaFave. When I first met my huband, having taken many French classes throughout the years, I made the mistake of pronouncing it la-fahve. He corrected me by saying, “Honey, this is America. Give it a rest.”
I’ve seen so many variations that are all pronounced almost exactly the same, too.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2002, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brett-favre/137489/10 "2002-11-19T13:30:05Z")
It’s pronounced Farve because that’s how the family pronounces it.
Everyone who criticizes the English language complains that it isn’t pronounced the way it is spelled (the complaint is overstated, but I won’t gon into that here). Now you’re wondering why something isn’t pronounced the way it’s spelled?
Proper nouns are especially prone to “illogical” pronuciations. Try Featherstonehaugh (usually pronounced “fan-shaw”) or Worcester, MA (“Wooster”) or Lefebvre (often pronounced “Le-Fay”), or Boisclaire (“Bo-clare”). A lot of time people from non-English speaking countries gave their family name a pronunciation that made more sense to English speakers when they came to America.
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### Author:  [@NYR407](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NYR407)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2002, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brett-favre/137489/11 "2002-11-19T16:16:32Z")
I never heard or seen “Featherstonehaugh” before. It is really pronounced “fan-shaw” or were you missing part of the word’s pronunciation?
There is a Lefebvre on the NY Rangers that pronounces it exactly as you said. There was another from the Chech Rep. that I could swear pronounced his name “Neck-cash” but it was spelled Neckar. It could have miss heard but it was definately not pronounced as it was spelled.
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### Author:  [@brianjedi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brianjedi)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2002, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brett-favre/137489/12 "2002-11-19T17:21:35Z")
IIRC, and this was several years ago, Brett answered this in an interview in some kids magazine. Basically, it originally was pronounced like it looks, but it got changed a couple of generations before Brett was born. Don’t have the article handy, but I think this may have come from an issue of _Disney Adventures_ or some other such magazine.
-brianjedi
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### Author:  [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2002, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brett-favre/137489/13 "2002-11-19T17:58:14Z")
We pronounce my last name weird: Ve-ne-to, not Ven-e-to.
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### Author:  [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2002, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brett-favre/137489/14 "2002-11-19T18:50:26Z")
And Favre grew up in Kiln, Mississippi, pronounced “KILL”! :eek:
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### Author:  [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2002, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brett-favre/137489/15 "2002-11-19T21:47:30Z")
Proper nouns, especially family names and place names, are not subject to rigid rules of pronunciations; it’s perfectly acceptable for such words to develop their own traditional pronunciation. Basically, a person is allowed to decide how his own name should be pronounced. One can spell one’s name Throat Warbler Mangrove, IOW, but pronounce it Luxury Yacht.
Ditto, to some extent, words imported from another language; difficult pronunciations tend to kind of settle into a near-miss approximation in their adopted language.
Favre is, of course, an excellent example of both of these principles.
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### Author:  [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2002, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brett-favre/137489/16 "2002-11-20T03:59:11Z")
So, if I spell my name S-M-I-T-H, can I pronounce it Jones? Won’t some officious little prick in a government office eventually make a stink?
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### Author:  [@Cholo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cholo)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2002, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brett-favre/137489/17 "2002-11-20T04:50:14Z")
Not if you can earn millions of dollars by throwing 40 touchdowns in one season and be the NFL MVP 3 times.
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### Author:  [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2002, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brett-favre/137489/18 "2002-11-20T04:57:11Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Lure \*
> Exactly how I pronounce Hors Douvres (sp?) \*oar derve \*
I still call them horse’s ovaries.
😃
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### Author:  [@Motog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Motog)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2002, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brett-favre/137489/19 "2002-11-20T05:08:50Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by racosun \*
> \*\*How in hell can Brett Favre’s last name be pronounced Farve when it is impossible? How can the English language be manipulated to do such a thing? \*\*
In many (if not most) English speaking countries, notably **England** , the letters “re” at the end of word is almost always pronounced “er”. In fact, in much of the english-speaking world, words that you Merkins spell ‘center’ and ‘meter’ are spelt ‘centre’ and ‘metre’, while still being pronounced the same way.
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### Author:  [@racosun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racosun)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2002, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brett-favre/137489/20 "2002-11-20T06:06:34Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Motog \*
> \*\*In many (if not most) English speaking countries, notably **England** , the letters “re” at the end of word is almost always pronounced “er”. In fact, in much of the english-speaking world, words that you Merkins spell ‘center’ and ‘meter’ are spelt ‘centre’ and ‘metre’, while still being pronounced the same way. \*\*
So would you pronounce Dmitre as “Dimeetree” or “Dmeter”?
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