# Rodeo or Ro-day-o drive? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 2, 2004, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rodeo-or-ro-day-o-drive/237864 "2004-04-02T04:34:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![FilmGeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@FilmGeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FilmGeek)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2004, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rodeo-or-ro-day-o-drive/237864/61 "2004-04-03T18:03:59Z")
Pushing this post away from pissing contests… please? ---
**Author:** ![Merkwurdigliebe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/74df32/32.png) [@Merkwurdigliebe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merkwurdigliebe)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2004, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rodeo-or-ro-day-o-drive/237864/62 "2004-04-03T18:10:42Z")
> [@](#): > > It’s my mother language so I have no idea WTF you are talking about. English is my second language and I bet I speak better English than many Americans. i still do not think I am any more intelligent because of speaking any language. I’ve know many dumb people and they could (and would) speak their thoughts in their own language so i never thought the ability to speak had anything to do with intelligence. That’s true, I didn’t catch that because I didn’t really feel up to wading through all of the autofellating that was going on back there. Excuse me. My point still holds true. You want us all to see how special you are because of your language abilities at someone else’s expense. Lets start at the beginning, no? > [@](#): > > Um, no. This is one of my pet peeves around here. You two, obviously know little or no Spanish A little early to be so uncivil, or am I wrong? You know they may not be experts at Spanish, but your assumption is quite insulting. > [@](#): > > So you took Spanish in school huh? That’s very impressive and I am sure you are very proud but, you see, Spanish is my native language. I am a rather well read and educated Spaniard who right now is watching Spanish TV reporting another terror attack has been foiled on the railway south of Madrid. There are no victims but train service on that line has been interrupted all day. My command of Spanish is pretty good. Nice use of condescending tone, but it certainly gets worse for you, my friend. :rolleyes: > [@](#): > > I am sooo happy for you. Thanks but I don’t really care as I am not operating from the standpoint of language mastery as some sort of amazing feat. > [@](#): > > And when you say that its pronounced the “Spanish” way its not saying that you pronounce it exactly like a Mexican would, but rather the more Spanish-sounding of the two. > > I have no idea how this is of any relevance since all Spanish dialects pronounce “de” pretty much the same way and, in any case, Mexican would be the only relevant one in this case and it does not support your assertion. When I used Mexican in that sentence, I meant it as the likely origin of rodeo for Los Angeles, and not to specify a significant difference. The fact that it is of Mexican origin means nothing to me, other than the fact that they speak Spanish. I’ll restate it, using Spanish for all terms. But the problem is when I say Spanish origin, it makes it sound like its from Spain, when its really from Spaniards in mexico. And mexicans don’t speak mexican they speak Spanish. But the point I was making is that the OP wanted to know where the pronunciation came from, and its obvious that its from a spanish origin. You can always argue that its nothing like a true spanish accent, but its the more spanish of the two known options to the Native American English speaker. Taking your average American with no knowledge of Spanish they best they can do is say the approximate vowels and consonants. RoDAYoh is closer to the spanish word than roDEEoh. Thats what was going on in this quote > [@](#): > > As greyseal said, “ro-day-oh” is basically the Spanish pronunciation of this word" > > Rodeo is the Spanish word for roundup. There is a California town close to San Francisco, Rodeo, pronounced ‘ro-day-oh,’ and I assume that the Southern California pronunciation is the same. Here in California, I have heard only that pronunciation. to which you drew the first blood responding: > [@](#): > > You two, obviously know little or no Spanish. That pronunciation is English and strictly English As if it weren’t relatively closer? WTF is going on here? They threw that qualifier “basically” in there for a reason. Do you get so offended when someone says that a spanish word in english is basically the same pronunciation? When someone says Mercedes or Porche in english it isn’t the German way, but its basically the same. I KNOW the difference but its easy enough to tell that its comes from SPANISH. How picky can you get to pretend as if there is NO similarity? Who was making the claim that they sound exactly the same? Nobody. > [@](#): > > Where is it written that I only get a choice of two? My assertion is that the English “day” has two syllables according to phoneticians and phonologists who would transliterate it as “de-i” and I am saying there is no second part “i” and it is only “de”. Where is it written that the only choices I get are English pronunciations? Why only two? Because the OP called into question the pronunciation of an English word. Rodeo Dr. is an anglicized word, just like estimation and any word we got from French. Its a lot newer, but not Spanish anymore. The whole point is why there are two different pronunciations of a word in English. People tried to make the point that its similar or basically the same in Spanish. RoDAYoh is relatively more Spanish than roDEEoh. It makes sense that in LA, which has a huge and continual Spanish influence there would be a tendency to keep more hispanicized forms. And yes, its still the same. I made the false assumption that you were a native English speaker who had a good command of Spanish. It doesn’t matter. The fact is that billingual people tend to think they are really special when they aren’t. I know it may seem like that in America, but if you go to other places in the world, it is more common. > [@](#): > > especially when they contradict you. yes? It’s not “showing off” if they agree with you but it’s always “showing off” if they disagree with you. Yes? Or where do you get I am “showing off”? I don’t see how you contradicted me considering how I hadn’t posted in this thread before. Its “showing off” because you are making an ass of yourself berating everyone else’s Spanish. Sure they might not be as good as a native speaker but they tried. They made their best guesses, but there was no need to dismiss someone else’s point in such a harsh manner. I actually agree with everything you say about Spanish, so I am not really thinking that you were contradicting me. I just saw this thread that somebody had an honest question and then he got a few answers, they were mostly correct. Then you came in to state that the spanish pronunciation and the english ones aren’t the same. That’s fine, but the insulting tone isn’t necessary. > [@](#): > > Yeah, don’t you hate it when they correct your errors? Sorry for any distress my posts may have caused you. I still stand by the accuracy of everything I have posted in this thread. I believe it is Oll Korrect. I don’t really know how I could have made an error considering that I had no prior posts. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2004, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rodeo-or-ro-day-o-drive/237864/63 "2004-04-03T18:46:47Z")
> [@Merkwurdigliebe](#): > > That’s true, I didn’t catch that because I didn’t really feel up to wading through all of the autofellating that was going on back there. Excuse me. My point still holds true. You want us all to see how special you are because of your language abilities at someone else’s expense. Lets start at the beginning, no? Look, you are the one who made this a personal pissing contest. I have been centering my points on the issues being discussed. If you are going to attack me personally the least you can do is get your facts straight. > [@](#): > > When I used Mexican in that sentence, I meant it as the likely origin of rodeo for Los Angeles, and not to specify a significant difference. The fact that it is of Mexican origin means nothing to me, other than the fact that they speak Spanish. I’ll restate it, using Spanish for all terms. But the problem is when I say Spanish origin, it makes it sound like its from Spain, when its really from Spaniards in mexico. And mexicans don’t speak mexican they speak Spanish. But the point I was making is that the OP wanted to know where the pronunciation came from, and its obvious that its from a spanish origin. First you are saying the dialects are different, now you are saying they are not. You keep going around all these things and I have no idea what the hell you are talking about. > [@](#): > > You can always argue that its nothing like a true spanish accent, but its the more spanish of the two known options to the Native American English speaker. Taking your average American with no knowledge of Spanish they best they can do is say the approximate vowels and consonants. RoDAYoh is closer to the spanish word than roDEEoh. My only point is that average Americans with no knowledge of Spanish should not be answering questions about Spanish pronunciation. That is my point. That’s all. No offense meant to anyone or anybody, living or dead. Look, I don’t care any more. I have more interesting threads going on. If you or anyone wishes to discuss any of the points I made I will be happy to answer but I have no interest in discussing who is better looking or more intelligent. The Forum for that is not this one. I am here to discuss factual answers to questions. I think my contribution has been made. I apologize if I offended anyone in the way I said things. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2004, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rodeo-or-ro-day-o-drive/237864/64 "2004-04-03T20:05:43Z")
Well, _this_ rodeo, however you want to pronounce it, has certainly turned into an old-fashioned goat rope, for which there is only ONE pronunciation. ---
**Author:** ![Bad\_News\_Baboon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/5fc32e/32.png) [@Bad\_News\_Baboon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bad_News_Baboon)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2004, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rodeo-or-ro-day-o-drive/237864/65 "2004-04-03T22:57:19Z")
I agree with Sailor on the -eh vs -ay pronounciation. I cringe every time I see a translation as -ay. When I see -ay, in my mind, it come out sounding like a big ol’ Texan accent. Eeeww wee pardner, it’s Ro-DAY-o time! 😉 The -ay vs -eh is usually a huge tip off that someone is not a native speaker. That said, if someone said Ro-DAY-o, I would most certainly understand them. If a Mexican came up to you and said eh-Steve instead of Steve you would understand them too, but you’d know they weren’t native speakers. All that aside, the one pronounciation that always trips me up is in Austin: Guadalupe Street. It should be Wah-dah-loo-peh but it’s pronounced Goo’wah-da-loop. I use both pronounciations: the former when speaking Spanish and the later when speaking English. ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2004, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rodeo-or-ro-day-o-drive/237864/66 "2004-04-03T23:18:00Z")
> [@greyseal](#): > > “ro-day-oh” is basically the Spanish pronunciation of this word, which is a Spanish word. > > Us Yankees tend to use the Yankeefied “ro-dee-oh” pronunciation. Interestingly enough, there is a Rodeo St in South Central LA which is pronounced the Yankee way. I made the mistake once and was heartily laughed at. When foreign words–including names–appear in _Jeopardy!_ answers, I note Trebek’s pronunciation and always follow it with what I believe to be the correct or nearly correct pronunciation. I pronounce “Beta”, the Greek letter, “Veeta,” though at home I am criticized for doing so. I never hear anyone pronounce “San Jose” as if the “J” had the English sound and the word rhymed with “dose.” The English pronunciation of foreign names seems to be a sloppy jumble of English and (distorted) foreign sounds. In Indiana, the name of the city “Terre Haute” is always pronounced “Terra Hoate,” although the French pronunciation is (approximately) “Terr Ohte.” The American League batting star Napoleon Lajoie always pronounced his last name “LAJ-uh-way.” ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2004, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rodeo-or-ro-day-o-drive/237864/67 "2004-04-03T23:30:03Z")
Not that it’s a word that I get to use with any frequency but to me the pronounciation RO-dee-oh seems more natural in English. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen Midnight Cowboy a few times. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2004, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rodeo-or-ro-day-o-drive/237864/68 "2004-04-03T23:35:52Z")
No, it’s not to be snooty. They just pronounce it a little closer to the Spanish pronunciation. BTW, I recall hearing Jack Webb pronounce “rodeo” as “ro-DAY-oh” in the “Dragnet” series, when he was talking about the cowboy event, not the drive. But, he was a local boy. ---
**Author:** ![straykat23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c4cdca/32.png) [@straykat23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/straykat23)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2004, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rodeo-or-ro-day-o-drive/237864/69 "2004-04-03T23:52:10Z")
Welcome to Rodeo, California [http://www.rodeoca.org/about/](http://www.rodeoca.org/about/) \*\*Quote: \*\* For thousands of years, Rodeo was home to the Ohlone Indians. The arrival of Spanish explorers and the resulting land grants during the 1800’s transformed the area from a quiet Indian enclave to a bustling center of ranching, meat packing, lumber yards and shipping. Rodeo was founded in 1890 when the Union Stock Yard Company was formed for the purpose of canning and packing meat. Rodeo (pronounced **Ro-DAY-o** ) gets its name from the cattle, sheep and hog round-ups (also known as rodeos) which took place at the Union Stock Yards. ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2004, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rodeo-or-ro-day-o-drive/237864/70 "2004-04-04T00:26:52Z")
> [@sailor](#): > > My assertion is that the English “day” has two syllables according to phoneticians and phonologists who would transliterate it as “de-i” **sailor** , you are of course right about the difference between Spanish “e” and English “ay”, and I’m not altogether sure why people are getting so hot under the collar at you for pointing out the difference. But I must take issue with your assertion quoted above - the vowel in “day” is a diphthong or glide /ei/ as opposed to a pure vowel but I don’t believe any phonetician would say it has two syllables or transliterate it as you did (with a hyphen). It’s a single phoneme in English. To say there are two syllables in “day” (or “light”, or “boy”…) is to apply a Spanish rule to English. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2004, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rodeo-or-ro-day-o-drive/237864/71 "2004-04-04T00:48:43Z")
> [@hibernicus](#): > > **sailor** , you are of course right about the difference between Spanish “e” and English “ay”, and I’m not altogether sure why people are getting so hot under the collar at you for pointing out the difference. But I must take issue with your assertion quoted above - the vowel in “day” is a diphthong or glide /ei/ as opposed to a pure vowel but I don’t believe any phonetician would say it has two syllables or transliterate it as you did (with a hyphen). It’s a single phoneme in English. To say there are two syllables in “day” (or “light”, or “boy”…) is to apply a Spanish rule to English. I agree. I was simplifying. I was just trying to point out the difference by exagerating it. In fact, I believe the couple “ei” is considered a diphtong in Spanish as well. ---
**Author:** ![d1a1s1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f6c823/32.png) [@d1a1s1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/d1a1s1)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2004, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rodeo-or-ro-day-o-drive/237864/72 "2004-04-04T18:49:24Z")
> [@Merkwurdigliebe](#): > > That’s true, I didn’t catch that because I didn’t really feel up to wading through all of the autofellating that was going on back there. Excuse me. My point still holds true. You want us all to see how special you are because of your language abilities at someone else’s expense. Lets start at the beginning, no? > > A little early to be so uncivil, or am I wrong? You know they may not be experts at Spanish, but your assumption is quite insulting. > > Nice use of condescending tone, but it certainly gets worse for you, my friend. :rolleyes: > > Thanks but I don’t really care as I am not operating from the standpoint of language mastery as some sort of amazing feat. > > When I used Mexican in that sentence, I meant it as the likely origin of rodeo for Los Angeles, and not to specify a significant difference. The fact that it is of Mexican origin means nothing to me, other than the fact that they speak Spanish. I’ll restate it, using Spanish for all terms. But the problem is when I say Spanish origin, it makes it sound like its from Spain, when its really from Spaniards in mexico. And mexicans don’t speak mexican they speak Spanish. But the point I was making is that the OP wanted to know where the pronunciation came from, and its obvious that its from a spanish origin. You can always argue that its nothing like a true spanish accent, but its the more spanish of the two known options to the Native American English speaker. Taking your average American with no knowledge of Spanish they best they can do is say the approximate vowels and consonants. RoDAYoh is closer to the spanish word than roDEEoh. Thats what was going on in this quote > > to which you drew the first blood responding: > > As if it weren’t relatively closer? WTF is going on here? They threw that qualifier “basically” in there for a reason. Do you get so offended when someone says that a spanish word in english is basically the same pronunciation? When someone says Mercedes or Porche in english it isn’t the German way, but its basically the same. I KNOW the difference but its easy enough to tell that its comes from SPANISH. How picky can you get to pretend as if there is NO similarity? Who was making the claim that they sound exactly the same? Nobody. > > Why only two? Because the OP called into question the pronunciation of an English word. Rodeo Dr. is an anglicized word, just like estimation and any word we got from French. Its a lot newer, but not Spanish anymore. The whole point is why there are two different pronunciations of a word in English. People tried to make the point that its similar or basically the same in Spanish. RoDAYoh is relatively more Spanish than roDEEoh. It makes sense that in LA, which has a huge and continual Spanish influence there would be a tendency to keep more hispanicized forms. > > And yes, its still the same. I made the false assumption that you were a native English speaker who had a good command of Spanish. It doesn’t matter. The fact is that billingual people tend to think they are really special when they aren’t. I know it may seem like that in America, but if you go to other places in the world, it is more common. > > I don’t see how you contradicted me considering how I hadn’t posted in this thread before. Its “showing off” because you are making an ass of yourself berating everyone else’s Spanish. Sure they might not be as good as a native speaker but they tried. They made their best guesses, but there was no need to dismiss someone else’s point in such a harsh manner. > > I actually agree with everything you say about Spanish, so I am not really thinking that you were contradicting me. I just saw this thread that somebody had an honest question and then he got a few answers, they were mostly correct. Then you came in to state that the spanish pronunciation and the english ones aren’t the same. That’s fine, but the insulting tone isn’t necessary. > > I don’t really know how I could have made an error considering that I had no prior posts. THANK YOU You pretty much answered my OP. ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2004, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rodeo-or-ro-day-o-drive/237864/73 "2004-04-05T05:30:35Z")
> [@Earl Snake-Hips Tucker](#): > > No, it’s not to be snooty. They just pronounce it a little closer to the Spanish pronunciation. > > BTW, I recall hearing Jack Webb pronounce “rodeo” as “ro-DAY-oh” in the “Dragnet” series, when he was talking about the cowboy event, not the drive. But, he was a local boy. Yup. He was born in Santa Monica. ---
**Author:** ![Surreal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eada6e/32.png) [@Surreal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surreal)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2004, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rodeo-or-ro-day-o-drive/237864/74 "2004-04-05T14:57:34Z")
I thought the debate here was about the pronunciation of the ‘o’ in rodeo, not the ‘e’. I stand corrected. **Sailor** , you are a cunning linguist and a master debater. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rodeo-or-ro-day-o-drive/237864/75 "2004-04-07T18:14:16Z")
> [@sailor](#): > > The vowels in Spanish, as in most languages that used the Roman alphabet, English being the exception, have short, brief, sounds and not the English long ones: > a = ah as in father (think of “la” in Spanish) > e = eh (think of “te” in Spanish) > i = ee as in geek (think of “ti” in Spanish) > o = short o as in pot > u = ooh (think of “tu” in Spanish) > > . Minor nitpick: You’re right about the sounds; however, other languages using the Roman alphabet do indeed have long vowels, vowel length being simply that–the duration of pronunciation. A long vowel is held in the mouth longer than a short vowel. English actually has proper long vowels too. Generally, a vowel will be long if it comes before voiced stop, fricative, or nasal, or if it is the final sound in the word. Think of how you pronounce the word \*_bid_ vs _bit_. The vowel in both is qualitatively the same, but held longer in _bid_. Similarly with _bead_ and _beat_. What elementary school teachers of reading and spelling call ‘long’ vowels are never called that by linguists; they’re actually diphthongs, and their true length generally follows the phonetic rule above. Think of _make_ and _made_. Again, the sound will be more protracted when it precedes the voiced consonant. ---
**Author:** ![chula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a4c791/32.png) [@chula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chula)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rodeo-or-ro-day-o-drive/237864/76 "2004-04-07T19:54:36Z")
Going back to **sailor** ’s first post… > [@sailor](#): > > Um, no. This is one of my pet peeves around here. You two, obviously know little or no Spanish. That pronunciation is English and strictly English. Please don’t assume the written vowels have the same phonetic value in any other language. I don’t know how many times I am going to have to repeat this. > > The vowels in Spanish, as in most languages that used the Roman alphabet, English being the exception, have short, brief, sounds and not the English long ones: > a = ah as in father (think of “la” in Spanish) > e = eh (think of “te” in Spanish) > i = ee as in geek (think of “ti” in Spanish) > o = short o as in pot > u = ooh (think of “tu” in Spanish) > > Anyone who says rodeo is pronounced ro-day-o in Spanish does not know the most basic thing about Spanish pronunciation. There is a lot of attitude in that post and I think it’s totally unjustified. If a native English speaker is asked to repeat the word “rodeo” as pronounced by a native Spanish speaker, it’s going to come out sounding like “ro-day-o.” The o’s are also going to sound longer, almost with a u at the end, and the r is not going to be rolled. **Greyseal** and **skaycat** ’s statements, with the qualifier of “basically,” are correct. Of course, few native English speaker can pronounce Spanish words exactly as a native Spanish speaker would. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rodeo-or-ro-day-o-drive/237864.md?page=3)