Broccoli pronunciation

There’s a Monty Python sketch where it’s pronounced that way - it’s the one where a guy goes to a funeral home and the funeral home guy convinces him that he should eat his dead mother with a bit of broccol-eye and stuffing.

Ireland checking in and it is pronounced “brocollee” here.

Ha, ha, I didn’t know they had that there too. It’s a “true fact” that Catholics in Northern Ireland say “Haitch” while Protestants say “aitch”. :slight_smile:

Were it not for the Python reference, I’d be convinced it was unique to Australia at this point.

It as actually pronounced Broccol-eye as it is the plural of Brocoll (or Broccolo) which are the single florets. Delicious chocolate dipped believe it or not.

I remember having a bit of fun with folks when I moved from Oregon to Texas, and I tried to convince a few people that in Oregon we pronounce it bro-CHO-lee (like cho as in chosen).

But no, I’ve never heard it pronounced anything other than brock-lee or if I did maybe a 3 syllable version that sounds very similar to brock-lee.

My linguistic background is that my father was from upstate NY, as were both his parents, and my mother was from South Miami, father from Cincinnati, mother from Augusta KY.

I pronounce it ‘BRA-gul-Lee.’ With the ‘gul’ really having a schwa in it, like the second syllable of ‘gargle.’ I just find it hard to go from a voiced syllable to an unvoiced one, so ‘broccoli’ becomes ‘broggoli.’

The brocco-lye pronunciation reminds me that although it started in jest, it seems everyone in my family now says asparagi (pronounced ass-par-i-guy). That is, of course, unless they’re going to limit themselves to one piece :wink: (and this began decades before Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss)

I say /ˈbɹɑk.li/
I’ve heard some others say /ˈbɹɑ.kə.li/, but my two-syllable pronunciation seems more common in the US, unless you ASK people how they pronounce the word, then they affect a third syllable.

Just a friendly tip: there’s no reason you can’t just use /r/ in phonemic transcriptions for English. Just like you didn’t use /ɒ/.

And, yes, asking people how they pronounce something is prone to error. When answering that question, be sure to wait a bit so you aren’t thinking about the pronunciation, and then use it in a sentence you use a lot.

I didn’t use /ɒ/ because there is no rounding. /ɑ/ (not /a/) seemed a better match.

brok-kuh-li

with the middle “u” devoiced so it sounds like 2 syllables

[Newman]Evil weed![/Newman]

Only, if you’re going to treat it as an Italian word (which is what you’re doing there), in Italian they don’t end it with that “eye/ai”, it’s “ee”.

BRAHK-u-lee. Definitely 3 syllables.