# Fawkes and Fox **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 22, 2007, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fawkes-and-fox/427375 "2007-11-22T00:16:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![LorieSmurf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a587f6/32.png) [@LorieSmurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LorieSmurf)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2007, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fawkes-and-fox/427375/1 "2007-11-22T00:16:11Z")
How is the name Fawkes pronounced? Is it like “fokes” or “fox”? For some reason I always thought it was said like fox, and figured that the surname Fox derived from that. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2007, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fawkes-and-fox/427375/2 "2007-11-22T02:25:35Z")
I’ve only ever heard it pronounced “Forks” ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2007, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fawkes-and-fox/427375/3 "2007-11-22T02:41:04Z")
**Peter Morris** , I’m assuming you’re British and don’t pronounce that [r] the same way you’d pronounce the ones in _rotten radishes_. Is that the same [aw] as in _law_? In that case, it’s a vowel that us Western Americans don’t usually have, and “fox” is the closest approximation, but not strictly speaking correct; a British ear would easily discern the difference. Fawkes is from the word for falcon, and Fox from that animal. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2007, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fawkes-and-fox/427375/4 "2007-11-22T02:53:31Z")
Well, we have a famous person in our history called [Guy Fawkes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_fawkes) Every year on November the 5th we set off fireworks to celebrate Guy Fawkes night. And we pronounce it as in “knives and forks” ---
**Author:** ![Celyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2007, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fawkes-and-fox/427375/5 "2007-11-22T03:47:30Z")
Only without the “r”. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Rysto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecccb3/32.png) [@Rysto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysto)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2007, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fawkes-and-fox/427375/6 "2007-11-22T04:10:13Z")
:smack: And finally the meaning behind the name of Dumbledore’s pet phoenix becomes clear. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2007, 9:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fawkes-and-fox/427375/7 "2007-11-22T09:22:53Z")
My grandfather’s middle name was Fawkes – he may have been related to the original Guy – and I’d pronounce it the same way as “forks”, and to rhyme with “gawks” and “talks”. Note that I’m not a native Ohioan – my accent is about halfway between Educated Australian and Received Standard English – so I’m non-rhotic. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2007, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fawkes-and-fox/427375/8 "2007-11-22T09:27:05Z")
Brit here. Yes, it rhymes with “talks” (or “forks”, for us non-rhotic people). So the question is, does “talks” rhyme with “fox” in America? ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2007, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fawkes-and-fox/427375/9 "2007-11-22T10:34:12Z")
Another Brit here. Yes, as in “forks”, but with less of an “r” sound - but my basically Standard English accent doesn’t put much of an “r” in “forks” in the first place; I’d emphasise the “r” much more after a consonant than before one. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2007, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fawkes-and-fox/427375/10 "2007-11-22T11:15:39Z")
“Gawks” is a perfect rhyme for it - ignore all the rhotic stuff. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2007, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fawkes-and-fox/427375/11 "2007-11-22T11:52:58Z")
[QUOTE=Colophon] So the question is, does “talks” rhyme with “fox” in America? [/QUOTE] Not any place I’ve ever been. And I’ve always heard “Fawkes” to rhyme with “talks” and “walks.” And “fox” rhymes with “rocks.” ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2007, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fawkes-and-fox/427375/12 "2007-11-22T17:32:43Z")
[QUOTE=Colophon] So the question is, does “talks” rhyme with “fox” in America? [/QUOTE] In parts of America, yes. It does in California. On the east coast, no. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2007, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fawkes-and-fox/427375/13 "2007-11-22T19:28:42Z")
To clarify, when I say “the fox talks to the clocks as he stalks the lox in the box,” a British-English speaker would hear _the fox tox to the clox as he stox the lox in the box_. (Actually, it’s probably somewhere between British _fox_ and _fax_) Before I learned to hear the difference, I once had an embarrasing misunderstanding when some friends were (I thought) talking about a new porn shop that had opened up in town, but it was really a pawn shop. ---
**Author:** ![solkoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@solkoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solkoe)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2007, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fawkes-and-fox/427375/14 "2007-11-23T03:44:24Z")
I have seen the name FOX written as FUCKS as early as 200 years ago. I thought this would be an interesting sidenote on how a name evolves. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2007, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fawkes-and-fox/427375/15 "2007-11-23T07:42:59Z")
[QUOTE=Dr. Drake] In parts of America, yes. It does in California. On the east coast, no. [/QUOTE] I grew up in Boston and talks, locks, and fox rhyme to me.