I’m British, resident in UK: have recently encountered some puzzlement about the word which I know as “lambaste” – meaning, to energetically attack and belabour someone (nowadays, usually just with words).
I have always understood it to be spelt “lambaste”; and – learned from my parents – pronounced to rhyme with “ham taste”. Opinion here in UK nowadays seems strongly to favour the correct pronunciation being, to rhyme with “Hamfast” (as in Sam Gamgee’s dad) – short “a” in second syllable: “fast”, not “fahst” (I fear I don’t do International Phonetic Alphabet).
My personal opinion is that, of course it ought to rhyme with “ham taste” – a combination of “lam” – vigorous hitting of someone or something – and “baste” – pour hot oil / fat over something, in cookery. The “Hamfast” version just sounds to me, nonsensical and totally wrong. However, in Britain anyway, I seem to be in a fairly small minority.
I’ve seen it opined in Britain: that in North America, the word is usually spelt “lambaste”; but in Britain, “lambast”. I’m not aware of having seen it spelt in Britain, without the final “e”; but am ready to admit that that might be confirmation bias.
Any thoughts on this matter, from anyone? How is the word generally spelt / pronounced in the US / Canada? – or is there much varying? (I’d feel that the spelling “lambaste”, asks for the “ham taste” pronunciation; but as we all know, in English, spelling vis-a-vis pronunciation is a minefield.)
Merriam-Webster gives both pronunciations, with the long-A variant first. Dictionary.com gives both, with the long-A variant first. Cambridge Dictionary gives both, but says the short-A variant is UK and the long-A is US. (This one is odd – the text gives the short-A variant for both, but the recorded audio pronunciation for the US version is the long-A.) MacMillan gives the short-A variant as the UK pronunciation.
So it’s unclear, but seems plausible that there’s a US/UK difference in the most common pronunciation.
Regarding the spelling, comparing “lambaste” and “lambast” in the Corpus of Global Web-Based English shows the latter is much more common in Great Britain than in the US. Out of 128 uses of “lambaste”, 43 are in the US and 22 are in GB, while of the 300 uses of “lambast”, 47 are in the US and 104 are in GB. (Sorry, I can’t figure out how to link directly to the search results.)
I’ve only ever heard it as lam baste in Canada. I have no clue what the common spelling is here. I would hazard to guess lambaste, but Canadian English is a hodgepodge of British and US spelling.
I am also British, also resident in the UK (south east England if that matters) and I have only ever seen it spelt ‘lambast’ and pronounced to rhyme with ‘Hamfast’ (with a short northern ‘a’ in fast). I have honestly never encountered the -baste variant before today!
I’ve always heard it (in my mind’s ear, never having had occasion to speak it, that I recall) as having the short “a” of “ham” or “hat” for both syllables of “lambast”, with the stress going on the second syllable, and therefore the past tense is “lambast-ed” rather than “lam-basted”. OED seems to agree with me, at least for the UK, but records an alternative:
I.e., dictionaries generally lean toward suggesting that commoner US pronunciation is the “ham taste” version; UK, the “hamfast” ditto.
“Personal experience” in posts here: I count four in favour of “hamfast”-- including one Briton; one in favour of “ham taste” (Leaffan, re Canadian usage); and one “equal opportunity”, leaning toward “ham taste”(Hari Seldon).
Spelling can it seems, be either way – not closely tied to pronunciation (par for the course with the English language !)
I perceive from content of thread so far, enough championing or at least acceptance of my strongly preferred “ham taste” pronunciation, for me to feel justified in continuing to say the word that way. As stated in my OP – I’m of course biased, but it seems to me, the obvious pronunciation: sounds splendidly fierce and forceful; the “hamfast” version sounds to me, wet and insipid. And “bast”, means fibrous material from the phloem of certain plants – what the heck?
It does seem (this confirmed by results of my airing this question on another, British-based, board) that in Britain, I am an oddity for using the “ham taste” version. I’d venture to say, it’s not a word that I or most people whom I know, use all that often; but I’m pretty sure that I and my parents are not the only British folk whom I’ve ever known to say it the “ham taste” way. Musing on this: my father was in the Merchant Navy before and during World War II – which took him to the USA, among many other places; and he and Mum were fans of the US, in a quiet way. Taking it that the “ham taste” pronunciation is commoner in North America (not everyone on the thread agrees with that) – maybe Dad picked it up there, and used it back home, and the family followed suit?
PatrickLondon– re my recent post, I missed this one of yours (our posts nearly simultaneous): another British vote for the “hamfast” pronunciation. Reinforces my feeling that I and my “older generation” seem to be very strange in Britain, for our way of pronouncing it – but my gut feeling remains as, “it’s the rest of the squad that are out of step !”
ETA: they keep coming in – Dead Cat too – Brits seemingly unanimous on “hamfast”. Sorry: but in Solzhenitsyn’s words: “I don’t want your good one – give me my bad one !”
Brit Dopers may all be of one view, but the Oxford English Dictionary recognises only the long ‘A’ pronunciation, with the same vowel sound as in face. The short ‘A’ pronunciation doesn’t even get a nod as an alternative.
Which might suggest that the long ‘A’ pronunciation used to be dominant in BrE, the short ‘A’ has recently overtaken it, and the OED hasn’t revised its entry since that happened.
!)