# Correct pronounciation for gyro (The sandwich) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 11, 2004, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correct-pronounciation-for-gyro-the-sandwich/259442 "2004-08-11T22:32:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Kizarvexius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/da6949/32.png) [@Kizarvexius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kizarvexius)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2004, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correct-pronounciation-for-gyro-the-sandwich/259442/41 "2004-08-13T14:19:11Z")
> [@Satyagrahi](#): > > The conclusion: Your very inexpensive yet flavorful dinner may have been–and may NOT have been–beef. Whatever it was, it was damned good. Besides, I’m part Cajun. If it’s capable of self-locomation and can’t fight you off, it’s fair game for dinner. > [@Doobieous](#): > > I was in a Spanish linguistics class, and the professor apparently knew less about the language than _I_ did. He’d frequently spout off folk etymologies, such as, saying the word “bárbaro” (Barbarian) came from the Latin word for “beard” because the barbarians had beards. Despite me looking it up the etymology and telling him it came from the Greek word for foreigners – barbaroi. He’d also said the origin of “sabado” is from “saturn”, which in the very book he had us read it said "from the same source as “sabbath”. He also claimed that the word “phonetics” and “fonos” came from the Phoenicians because in his folk etymology mind they sounded the same. He had to admit he was wrong when i corrected him and said that phonetics and fono both come from the greek word for “sound”, NOT phoenicians. > > Ach, and this guy was a DOCTOR. Wow. Sounds exactly like a professor I had for a Latin class. He said exactly the same thing about the word “barbarian”. He was trying to shoot me down when I said in class that it came from the Greek word for “someone who babbles senselessly.” Over the course of the semester, he spouted a few other doozies as well. Since I had already had an extremely negative experience with correcting professors in class, I just kept my mouth shut. ---
**Author:** ![barbitu8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@barbitu8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barbitu8)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2004, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correct-pronounciation-for-gyro-the-sandwich/259442/42 "2004-08-13T14:50:50Z")
> [@stpauler](#): > > That’s the way I was taught by some greek friends. The R had the tongue moving from the hard to the soft pallet quickly which made it have a “d” like sound to the “r”. (That was ten years ago so my memory might be incorrect, but that’s how I remember them telling me how to pronounce it). Wouldn’t that be the rolling “r” as in the Spanish “r”? (BTW, it’s palate.) ---
**Author:** ![stpauler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@stpauler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stpauler)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2004, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correct-pronounciation-for-gyro-the-sandwich/259442/43 "2004-08-13T15:40:40Z")
> [@barbitu8](#): > > Wouldn’t that be the rolling “r” as in the Spanish “r”? (BTW, it’s palate.) Damn homonyms. It was right in my head, of course 😉 . The spanish rolling “r” or [“rr”\*](http://spanish.about.com/library/weekly/aa092099.htm) is a bit different. Assuming that you mean the “r” that is at the beginning of a word or the “rr” in the middle of a word. (A single “r” in the middle of a word has a different pronunciation than the former). The spanish “r”/“rr” uses the [alveolar trill or flap](http://www.campusprogram.com/reference/en/wikipedia/s/sa/sampa_chart.html) which according to the next website is just using the hard palate as what we’re really talking about here is [rhotics.](http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/rhotics) As far as I can tell using the terminology from the rhotics page, the way I was taught to pronounce the “r” in gyro was to go from the alveolar tap to a velar approximant. \*When I was taking Spanish in High School, we were taught that “rr” was a letter onto itself, but according to that website, it’s not. Hmph. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correct-pronounciation-for-gyro-the-sandwich/259442.md?page=2)