I’ve always pronounced, and heard pronounced, ‘Mazda’ as ‘mahz-duh’. Being near the border, I sometimes watch Canadian television. The Mazda ads I’ve seen pronounce the name with a short ‘a’, as in ‘mad’. Like ‘mazz-duh’.
Is the short-a pronunciation common in Canada? How do they say ‘taco’?
There’s a similar occurrence with “pasta” and “drama”, where the first “a” is considerably shorter than I would make it. (My vowels come from Boston, for reference.)
This isn’t a constant across Canadians, though – I’ve really only heard it from a few,
I’ve only heard it as “mazz-duh,” so that’s what I say. And “taco” is “tah-co.”
My ex-wife was American. She commented a few times on the Canadian pronunciation of pasta (“pass-ta” to me), and the Toyota Celica (“se-LEE-ka,” not “SELL-ika,” as she pronounced it).
I didn’t even know there was a Marz-da version. Mazz-da is the only way I’ve ever heard it.
Well, that’s no help! The word “pass” has more than once pronunciation, too!
Hmm, I’ve only ever heard “SELL-ih-ka” in either country, too.
I had to say Mazda out loud a few times because I thought for sure I wasn’t saying ‘duh’, but sure enough I pronounce it “Maz-duh”. For taco It sounds like tAH-co.
Never heard that myself. Emphasis has always been on the second syllable.
For what it’s worth, the commonest pronunciations in the UK would be mazz-duh and se-LEE-ka.
In Toronto, the mAZ du pronunciation seems to be the rule (acknowledging I may be experiencing selection bias). Paahsta, too. The word “taco” is said seldom enough that I cannot comment on it.
That’s the way we pronounce it in Australia as well. And we never called the cars now known as Nissan ‘Dahtsun’ - it was always dat (rhymes with that) s’n.