amanset, my impression is that the OED is still considered THE authoritative reference source on the English language. Your experience and irishgirl’s, however, indicate that OED’s editors are well behind the times on this particular pronunciation.
I therefore retract my earlier post, or I should reword it to say that the British pronunciation of “Quixote” used to be “QUIK-zit.” The fact that it appears as the pronunciation in OED suggests that somebody in Britain used to say it that way…
I wonder exactly when the British pronunciation of “Quixote” reverted to the Spanish pronunciation. Have any other British or Irish Dopers ever heard it pronounced the old “Qwik-zit” way?
Oh, and the OED pronunciation in my earlier post should read as kwIkset (with a schwa, the upside down "e,"as explained above). Copying and pasting didn’t work very well. Argh.
I have heard plenty of theatrical and literary types pronounce it “Kwiksut”, the same sort of people who say “Don Jewun”. But (an approximation of) the Spanish pronunciation is the norm now.
No need. We all get stuff wrong now and again. I can be spectacularly good at it.
My Girlfriend lived in France for a large portion of her teens. She always giggles or comments when I use any of the obvious French stuff that has creeped into the English language, for example “déjà vu”. Apparently I get just about all of them “wrong”.
Then again, she comes from a country where people still seem to think Scotland and Wales are part of England, so what does she know?
Interesting note: in Manx Gaelic (whence comes my username), the name “John” is spelt “Juan” and pronounced “Joo-an.” I am unsure if this is how the name naturally evolved, or if the pronunciation was influenced by the weird Anglo-Celtic orthography the language uses (which also gives us “hug mee” for “I put”, which I always found hilarious).
I wish people who’ve never even BEEN to Missouri and probably don’t even know any one FROM Missouri would stop passing along this “gem”.
NO, we fucking DONT. It’s Miz-ur-ee. Just like it should be. :rolleyes:
Have you EVER heard a “Missouri” or “Kansas” accent? No, that’s because they don’t exist. We speak the way that news anchors are taught to speak. Without accent.
Anyone know how the state capital of Vermont is pronounced? Or even Vermont? And don’t Americans also mangle New Orleans? Florida? Texas? Pronounciation of all words evolves with time so where is the big deal?
So explain fill-it for fillet, as in a hunk of fish. They live right across the channel, fer cryin’ out loud. Just a few minutes by tunnel. If you stand at the England end, you should be able to hear it pronounced correctly from the France end.
Peace,
mangeorge
According to dictionary.com, fill-it is the only correct pronunciation for fillet (two "l"s). America seems to use “filet”, as in “filet mignon”, which seems to be pronounced “flaming yong”, as best I can tell. I prefer to stick closer to the original French and order Yong flambée.
Yes, walk into any fish and chip shop in Dover and you will hear the ENGLISH word ‘fillet’ (which, although it originated from the French, is now not only an ENGLISH word, but an ENGLISH noun and an ENGLISH verb to boot) pronounced CORRECTLY in the local ENGLISH (not French).
In the Dover chippy in question (at the ‘France end’ of England - otherwise known as Kent), the ‘fillit’ version would be used by anyone except possibly the occasional French tourist (and Mangeorge ;))
Meanwhile, if you leave the chippy and go into the local McDonald’s (if there is one in Dover), you will come across an orange deep-fried vaguely fishy-tasting thing in a bun called a “fillay 'o fish.” This is because McDonald’s forces its employees to use this pronunciation. Why? Who knows? Who cares?
Get it into your heads people (especially US dopers, who for some reason seem more guilty of this) that between two different pronunciations of the same word used by native speakers of the same language there is no ultimate “correct” version. The only reason I could see for people to get uppity is in the case of place names with silly local pronunciations - but again, how are residents of Witchita, Kansas supposed to know, for example, that St Austel in Cornwall is pronounced “Snozzle” by the locals?
Count me in on this one- to pronounce ‘fillet’ as ‘fee-lay’ is just plain wrong in British English- it’s an English word, with a different spelling from the French word from which it derives.
If I wanted to use the word that is pronounced ‘fee-lay’- for example, if I was writing a menu- I would use the word ‘filet’.
I’m still waiting, incidentally, for comments on the pronunciation of ‘Notre Dame’ as ‘Note-uh Dayme’.
On the question of ‘Don Juan’, I would say that in almost all cases, British people would pronounce it ‘Don Whan’, as you’d expect. The only time I’ve heard ‘Don Jew-an’ was during a highbrow discussion of Byron’s work on BBC Radio 4- I think this strange pronunciation is specific to the Byron poem. In ALL other cases, the name Juan poses no problem to Brits- e.g. King Juan Carlos, Juan Antonio Samaranch, and Jim Kerr’s adopted Spanish son Juan Kerr.
And Don Quixote- ‘Don Quikzit’? Get a grip- even Nik Kershaw, esteemed '80s troubadour, knew better than that.
As a native English speaker with manners, I don’t make fun when I hear Spanish people saying English words.
Most Dutch people speak more than one language. (Well done, those men!) However I don’t think they have a ‘th’ sound in Dutch, so they sometimes struggle with words like ‘the’.
And English has many sources, as shown by the pronounciations of:
