The word pronounced “VIT əlz” (meaning food) is more properly spelled v-i-c-t-u-a-l-s. “Vittles” is just a nonstandard variant.
- “shiny silver with lots of rainbow colors” wrapping paper is called incandescent
- “Time Square” is actually Times Square
Although most people say “forte” as fort-TAY, it’s not a French word. It was originally supposed to be said with one syllable.
That’s iridescent.
DOH!!! I meant to type that; I really did. That was the crux of the whole thing! They were saying incandescent and I corrected them to iridescent. Gahhh…
Untrue. “Forte” is indeed a french word, pronounced for-tay.
Whether one says “fort” or “fortay” depends on whether or not they’re using the italian or french pronunciation.
Granted, the italian pronunciation is preferred as many feel the derivation of the american expression was out of the italian word, rather than the french one.
But that opinion does not negate the french word.
I was under the impression that “forte” the music term (as in “loud”) was Italian and was supposed to be pronounced with two syllables, while “forte” meaning one’s strong suit was French and should be pronounced with one syllable. Am I right?
<<blush>> You are correct. I got the nationalities reversed. French pronunciation is the one-syllable “fort”, italian is the two syllable “fort”. Forte in french means “strong”, while in italian it means ‘loud’. (or so I think now. I should shut up, I’m not an linguist. But “forte” is a real french word, which was my main contention)
:smack::smack:
Actually, forte means strong in Italian as well. It just means the music is to be played strongly.
Sorry, m’man Mercotan.
please don’t crush my hull
When my dad emailed me a rumor that Snopes.com had been discredited. I sent him back, THIS link and told him not to believe every rumor that hits his email inbox. I felt pretty good that I taught my dad to be a better critical thinker.
I just taught my dad yesterday that ringworm does not come from poop, is not an internal parasite, and isn’t really a worm but a fungus. It just looks like there’s a worm under the skin when people get a classic lesion from it. He didn’t know it’s treated with the same stuff used for athlete’s foot and jock itch, and it’s not that big a deal for people or animals with healthy immune systems.
I taught my fiancee about the double-slit experiment, as best I understood it, which is very very little.
Today I taught my co-workers how casu marzu (a Sardinian variety of cheese) is made. 
My colleagues were thrilled to learn that male marsupials generally have forked penises and females have two vaginas to match. They were also fascinated by the story of the homosexual necrophiliac mallard (he fucked the corpse for over an hour!).
Is this related to that “double-slit experiment” RandMcnally was talking about?
Looking up forte in Merriam-Webster, it seems that the proper pronunciation is problematic.
About one in five Americans are living in poverty. Most of them are children.
I have still never heard that word actually pronounced. I’ve heard “vittles” on country-cultured shows, but never even connected the two. Are you saying something like Vitte-ells? Short i?
I was trying to say that vittles and victuals are pronounced identically.
“A Giraffe’s tongue is 18 inches long and prehensile.”