Interesting. When I first saw this OP, I was in a bad mood due to stupid shit at work. I said “Ciao Luigi” with not a trace of an accent. Now, that I’ve decided work can go frak themselves, and I’m in a great mood, I found I read “Ciao Luigi” like a bad caricature that fell out of a Donkey Kong movie.
No and no.
To expand on that: I for one can readily imagine someone saying ‘Hello Lewis’ or ‘Goodbye Louis’ in an exaggerated Italian accent - these are English-language phrases. ‘Ciao Luigi’ is an Italian-language phrase so it can be spoken with any accent in existence, except with an Italian accent.
Well, we’ve gotten so far off topic I can’t say for sure 
I think there was no joke per se, but that the OP was a sort of a test to see if people say foreign words with *their perceived notion *of the corresponding accent. Yikes, I’m running out of ways to phrase that. Sort of like how a newscaster might say “Bwaynose EYEraise” in such a way as to duplicate the way an Argentinian would say it while most Americans usually say “Bwaynose AIRease”.
It would be harder for me to say Air-eez, or Air-ace, than Eye-race.
I don’t get it either. Is there another way to pronounce ‘Ciao, Luigi’ than chow loo-WEE-gee? Is that stereotypical? I dunno. It’s about what I’d expect to hear based on my admittedly limited understanding of Italian pronunciation.
If I was auditioning for an SNL sketch or trying to make my kid laugh, I’d say somehting like “CHOWa LooWEEGE” in sort of a sing song way. Not saying that’s accurate Italian pronunciation; that’s just the stereotypical I hear in my head.
Oh. I don’t think I’ve ever heard that particular pronunciation. Wouldn’t the -uh ending follow a consonant as in ‘meat-uh ball-uh’? Chow-uh doesn’t even sound right to my ear.
Seconding that I’ve never heard anyone insert extraneous stereotypically-italian "uh"s into an already-italian phrase.
I was saying it really slowly because I though there might have been a hidden word in the middle or something that only makes itself clear when the phrase is spoken out loud.
I had the same reaction that you did. It seemed to me that the OP was trying to gently poke fun at readers for unwittingly saying the phrase in a stereotypical Italian accent. Especially since “say the phrase Ciao Luigi out loud” suggests that if you pronounce it in a certain way, it will suddenly sound like something else (like Roberto = rubber toe, WOOKINPANUB = ‘looking for love’ in Gumby’s voice, dammit :D).
So when people came in, all serious, insisting that it’s very easy to pronounce, etc. etc., it was like they were obstinately refusing to play along, maybe hinting that their knowledge of correct Italian made it impossible for them to fall prey to the lure of incorrect pronunciation.
It’s like if I said something like “well, how far can you karaoke?” and hoped folk would pronounce it ‘carry-okey’ and get my joke. If someone pops in and smugly points out that the correct pronunciation is ‘ka-ra-oh-keh,’ well then my joke falls flat.
So like you, I thought this thread would play out a bit differently.
So now I’ve wasted several minutes of my life reading this entire thread, and . . . what, there’s no punch line? The OP is just being a nin-a com-a poop-a?
Thanks, paisan. I thought I was going oobatz :smack:
I still don’t get it… 
Shag, got room in that corner? Can I come over?
Raw pronunciation doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with an accent. You can say chow loo-EE-gee both as in English, or as one stereotypically thinks an Italian says it.
Perhaps some recordings will help. I already admit that I can’t really do it with the phrase given, but I can do it with the following two phrases:
[ul]
[li]“It’s-a me, Mario”[/li][LIST]
[li]English[/li][li]Fake Italian[/li][/ul][/list]
[ul][li]“Molto bene, signora”[/li][LIST]
[li]English butchering[/li][li]Stereotypical Italian[/li][/ul]
[/LIST]
Sure, there’s a slight difference in pronunciation, but the big difference is in the tone.
OK, and?
Some people, when they say the phrase out loud for the first time make it sound like my English versions (or whatever their local accent is), while other people make it sound more like my Italian versions. The OP is asking which one you do.
It seems you guys were unclear about the question in the OP, since you couldn’t comprehend what he meant by the “stereotypical Italian accent.” So I thought sound would help explain it. Did I misunderstand?
I guess what I’m missing by several miles is why would that be funny. I know what Italians sound like and what comedians-exagerating-an-Italian sound like, and I know some people find “people doing accents” hilarious even before they get to see whether there’s any other kind of joke to the sketch, but apparently I’m missing this particular version of the funny bone.
Ah, I don’t get that, either. The accent can add to a joke, but, by itself, I also don’t find it funny.
The way it adds to a joke is either just by sounding weird or, more likely, by making fun of a stereotype. The former is based on the idea of priming the humor pump: while not humorous enough in and of itself to produce a laugh, it does make you more prepared to laugh at something later on. The latter is a class of humor based on the idea of the silly, illogical things we humans do, and pointing out how silly and illogical things are.
At least, that’s how I’d explain it to some extraterrestrial inquiring about humor. I don’t think you can really explain exactly why you find something funny, only analyze it after the fact.
Is this supposed to be funny? Just looks like a poll to me. I don’t think there’s a joke contained therein (or, if there is, I’m missing that particular funny bone, too.)
For the record, I think my answer is no and no, although I read completely through the thread and forgot my initial response.