# Pronunciation of non-English words in old movies **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 27, 2021, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-non-english-words-in-old-movies/955026 "2021-11-27T14:04:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2021, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-non-english-words-in-old-movies/955026/62 "2021-12-03T17:27:12Z")
> [@APB](#): > > Not quite. Ha! And I thought that was one piece of aristocratic trivia I knew. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2021, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-non-english-words-in-old-movies/955026/63 "2021-12-03T17:34:38Z")
It’s a place’s name vice a person’s, but there were rumblings a couple years ago over the pronunciation of ‘Nevada’. IIRC red states favored the short ‘a’, blue states the long. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2021, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-non-english-words-in-old-movies/955026/64 "2021-12-03T17:50:55Z")
> [@FairyChatMom](#): > > The only exception I can think of is John Wayne in his various cowboy incarnations - he spoke Spanish as you might expect an American to, but with some effort to say things correctly. Just a little note about John Wayne, he was married three times, one of Spanish American decent and the other two were from Latin America. So he had some help and first hand knowledge of the language. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2021, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-non-english-words-in-old-movies/955026/65 "2021-12-03T18:54:41Z")
> [@F.U.Shakespeare](#): > > IIRC red states favored the short ‘a’, blue states the long. I’ve never heard _anyone_ ever pronounce Nevada with a long-a sound. “Ne-vay-dah?” “Ne-vah-day?” huh? ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2021, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-non-english-words-in-old-movies/955026/66 "2021-12-03T18:58:27Z")
My bad. Red state pronunciation: a as in hat. Blue state pronunciation: a as in yacht. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2021, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-non-english-words-in-old-movies/955026/67 "2021-12-03T19:27:25Z")
> [@Mighty\_Mouse](#): > > I had a coworker who kept trying to “correct” how I pronounce my name. He was from the European country that colonized the place my ancestors come from and forcibly changed names and religion. But over 300+ years pronunciations have changed either in the mother country or the colonies, but he insisted I was pronouncing my name “wrong”. In most of the countries I’ve lived in, my surname is pronounced the way it was in _ **The Blue Max** _, and not by American teens circa 1960… ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2021, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-non-english-words-in-old-movies/955026/68 "2021-12-03T23:01:10Z")
> [@Dallas\_Jones](#): > > ust a little note about John Wayne, he was married three times, one of Spanish American decent and the other two were from Latin America. So he had some help and first hand knowledge of the language. As I said in an earlier post. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2021, 9:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-non-english-words-in-old-movies/955026/69 "2021-12-04T09:51:49Z")
In _ **Mildred Pierce** _ (1945), Joan Crawford asks her ex-husband (I’m pretty sure) “How are your **OR** -an-ge groves?” rolling the “R” in a very hoity-toity fashion. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2021, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-non-english-words-in-old-movies/955026/70 "2021-12-04T16:39:16Z")
Speaking of The Shat and final Ts, when Shatner was on SNL playing TJ Hooker, and he jumped on a car hood and didn’t get off until Wisconsin, he said he was in Beloit, but he pronounced it as if it were a French word (Buh LOY) and not like it really is (Buh LOIT). We pronunciate all our letters in WI, thankyouverymuch. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2021, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-non-english-words-in-old-movies/955026/71 "2021-12-11T11:43:36Z")
Probably not the last one. Ask Steve Martin [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/0vPKpMMapEg/hqdefault.jpg "My Blue Heaven - Arugula, it's a vegetable") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vPKpMMapEg) ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2021, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-non-english-words-in-old-movies/955026/72 "2021-12-11T11:46:33Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Spock also pronounced “Chekov” as " **Chek** -ove’ (long “O”). > > And never in the last 50 years have I seen it spelled that way, or met a Russian who has. The correct spelling is “Chekhov,” and it’s pronounced with the “-kh-” sound. To be fair, this is not phonemic in American English and most monoglot Anglophones can’t distinguish clearly between k and kh. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2021, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-non-english-words-in-old-movies/955026/73 "2021-12-11T13:51:38Z")
A UW professor told our class the the correct pronunciation would be “Bell-wah.” No offense, but we’d all grown up being told it was pronounced to rhyme with the sound of a fart in the bathtub. ---
**Author:** ![Bonum\_Legatum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bonum_legatum/32/6183_2.png) [@Bonum\_Legatum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bonum_Legatum)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2021, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-non-english-words-in-old-movies/955026/74 "2021-12-13T10:46:27Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > A UW professor told our class the the correct pronunciation would be “Bell-wah.” Is that because it is a French derivation? Detroit came from a French phrase meaning “the straits”, pronounced “de-twah”. When I was growing up, my teachers told me to pronounce it “de-TROIT”. But even then, “DEE-troit” was taking over. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2021, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-non-english-words-in-old-movies/955026/75 "2021-12-13T11:11:16Z")
> [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#): > > I’ve never heard _anyone_ ever pronounce Nevada with a long-a sound. “Ne-vay-dah?” “Ne-vah-day?” I’m calling it “Ne-VAY-DAY” from now on just to annoy everyone. ---
**Author:** ![Dandan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a87d85/32.png) [@Dandan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dandan)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2021, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-non-english-words-in-old-movies/955026/76 "2021-12-13T11:56:18Z")
In “RED DUST”, set in Indochina, Clark pronounces it “SAY-gon”. Any idea if this was standard, pre-war? Dan ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2021, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-non-english-words-in-old-movies/955026/77 "2021-12-13T13:37:19Z")
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