Duchossoir
A.R.Duchossoir, author of some well know guitar reference books.
du rhymes with tu [ty], a rounded English too
choss is not far off German Schloss minus the [l], or English toss with an initial sh- instead of t-.
oir rhymes in voir, like English war but with the [a] in bar, and a nice throaty French [r]. This is the stressed syllable.
doo shoss WAHRRR? Close enough?
Thanks!
Yeah, but don’t forget that Brett Favre pronounces his name “FARV”. So only if this guy is actually French can you be assured of the pronunciation.
If you want to actually sound French, swallow most of the R.
Doo scho swahh(r)
(The French actually ship most of their terminal Rs to Spain)
I’ve had this guys books for many years, recommended them on the internet and never yet had an occasion to pronounce it. I just always wondered.
In my head I was pronouncing it
Doo Ko saur
Thanks all.
I’m sure the guy would hate me for how I’d pronounce it.
No, no, a hundred times no ! “Du” is not pronounced doo. It doesn’t rhyme with doo. It doesn’t return doo’s calls.
“doo” is a /u/, the French “du” is a /y/. There’s no /y/ in the whole of the English language. It’s our sound, and you can’t have any ! Mouahahah ! If you speak some German however, it’s the same sound as their “ü”.
Wikipedia helpfully provides a soundbyte. In practical terms, what you do is start with a /u/ sound (as in “you”), and push the sound further towards the front of the mouth, while pursing your lips. If you look like a chimpanzee giving a kiss, you’re doing it right.
That said, if you don’t want to be arsed with the phonology (and who would ?), “doo shoss wah’” will do. It won’t be pretty, I’m not gonna lie to you. There’s going to be winces, possibly even rolled eyes. But that’s the price Mr. Duchossoir will have to pay for dealing with you filthy foreigners.
According to Dave Barry, it would be pronounced jurrroooonggg, along with every other French word or name.
Wouldn’t the “o” in the middle syllable be closer to the sound in “choke” rather than “toss”?
Sound clips:
(BTW, looking for sound clips, I found out that whoever did the recordings for About.com’s French Audio Dictionary has a noticeable English accent. As a matter of fact, she sounds like Jane Birkin. Be warned.)
You warn people about someone who sounds like Jane Birkin? Who wouldn’t want to hear this all day long?
ETA : I long suspected that Jane Birkin works hard to keep her accent, or just fake it.
Jane Birkin’s accent is too precious to let people make cheap imitations.
This is exactly it ! I was beginning to think that I would have to record it myself and upload it somewhere.