I’ve heard three different pronunciations of the word ‘jaguar’. The most common is jag-wahr; one that I’ve heard on car commercials is jag-yoo-ahr - that I can live with, especially when said with a British accent; the third, and the one that infuriates me, that makes my skin crawl is jag-wire. I started hearing sportscasters using this annoying version when referring to the NFL franchise located in Jacksonville, Fla. Please help! Does this have a regional origin, or is it just the seemingly collective idiocy of of the profession of sportscasting?
Well I can’t really answer as to the idiocy of professional sportscasters, or which of your first two pronunciations is correct, but I can tell you that it’s not the sportscasters’ fault that the way they’re pronouncing the NFL team name sounds ridiculous.
IIRC after a few years in the league, I heard various sportscasters say that they had received requests from the team itself to pronounce the team name in the way that you now hear on television. So you can blame the Jacksonville Jaguars themselves, and not the sportscasters for that one.
the british pronunciation ( and therefore correct if you’re talking about a car) is jag-YOO-are
I’ve noticed before that americans (yes I’m generalising…) pronounce U’s like W’s… one that particualarly annoys me is ‘Josh-Wa’ for ‘Josh-U-a’
I thought in Britain it was pronounced ha-RUMPH.
People, let’s not confuse “British accent” with “English accent”. Scottish and Welsh accents are very different to English ones, which also vary massively based on region.
I’d like to clarify that most English people don’t pronounce "R"s on the end of words, so the more correct “Received Pronunciation” phonetic spelling would be “JAG-yoo-uh”.
quite right jjimm… i meant English accent - in fact, south-eastern England, just to the southwest of London, to be more precise 
I think “Jag-yoo-uh” is more lazy speaking than anything else, but in terms of received pronunciation, as you say, I’d have to agree
Except I believe that the word is Spanish in origin. In which case “hag-wahr” is the correct pronunciation. Which would lead me to believe that “jag-wahr” is the correct English derivation.
Unless it’s the car. Then it’s jag-yoo-are because it’s their company and they can pronounce it any darn way they please.
Actually according to the The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. the etymology is as follows:
Spanish and Portuguese, from Guarani jaguá, yaguar, dog.
Considering the Guarani were an Amazon tribe I would think that the etymology is more like Guarani -> Portuguese -> Spanish.
The correct Brazilian Portuguese pronunciation would then be scha-goh-ar (with a very soft sch). Note: not ‘oo’, but ‘oh’.
Another interesting fact is that the jaguar is not called that in Brazil. It is called ‘onca’ which corresponds to the name of the species: Panthera onca.
My dad insisted on pronouncing it “zhag-wah”. I don’t know why. Anyway, there’s a fourth pronunciation for you. Not as annoying as “jag-wire”.
My mom almost got an E-type Jaguar back in the '60s, but she needed something with room in the back for me; so she got an MGB instead. I’ve always wanted an E-type.
If you’re talking specifically about the car, I worked for a company that had Jaguar as one of their main clients. They sent out a memo stating that Jag-yoo-are was preferred, Jag-wahr was okay (and used by most people we dealt with), and Jag-wire would get you fired.
Yeah, me too - with Vanessa Kensington in the passenger seat!
Just for the sake of it, here’s what the Jag-lovers internet resource has to say. Personally, I can’t see any reason to complain about regional/international variations, though.
It’s not just the sportscasters - that’s how the locals here refer to the home team. Or they shorten it to Jags, which doesn’t grate as badly.
A mate of mine has an E-Type. It goes like shit off a shovel, but dear God the brakes are awful. I was not happy to be wobbling diagonally down a country road as he tried to get the speed down from 130mph to 30mph because a village was approaching…
And in most Spanish-speaking countries it is generally, if incorrectly, known as the tigre (tiger), although the name jaguar is also known.
The Hollywood addendum to RP requires that all r’s be removed and stored for later use at the ends of certain words that do not have them:
"That was the fah-stis Jag-gue-wah I evah sawr "
Caution: severe glottal trauma may occur when broading theses a’s; check first if the actor’s union will honor a disabilty claim.
Spooky. TheLadyLion and I were having this very discussion the other night. While she doesn’t agree with my three syllable pronunciation we both agree that “jag-wire” is wrong.
Jag-war or jag-u-ar, could they please please pronounce it the same throughout the damn commercial? Pick on, and let’s move on.
I think it sounds funniest when said by the Scottish kid from the movie Rushmore: “jag-yar.”
I think that Hollywood shares these extra Rs with BBC Radio drama, because they pop up in the strangest places when Engish actors are trying to fake American accents:
“Thart wars the faasterst Jag-war I erver saw”.