# The Queen's English pronunciation of "Maurice." **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 21, 2021, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-queens-english-pronunciation-of-maurice/944790 "2021-06-21T19:40:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-queens-english-pronunciation-of-maurice/944790/42 "2021-06-22T09:25:21Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > Yes really. A soft ‘zzzacque’ is not remotely english pronunciation. How was President Chirac’s first name pronounced in Britain? ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 9:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-queens-english-pronunciation-of-maurice/944790/43 "2021-06-22T09:37:58Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > That’s because “Jacques” is not remotely an English name. As a rule, you’re supposed to pronounce foreign names the way they’re spoken in their native tongues. Jack is the english equivalent. And there are a million similar examples, including my own first name. Maurice is a name that appears in both english and french, and we pronounce them differently. Hardly earth shattering ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 9:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-queens-english-pronunciation-of-maurice/944790/44 "2021-06-22T09:39:08Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > Jack is the english equivalent. Which is why I’d pronounce “Jack” with a hard J and “Jacques” with a soft J. ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 9:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-queens-english-pronunciation-of-maurice/944790/45 "2021-06-22T09:39:33Z")
Jacques is not a name that appears in english. Maurice is. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 9:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-queens-english-pronunciation-of-maurice/944790/46 "2021-06-22T09:39:59Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > Jacques is not a name that appears in english. Maurice is. Fair enough. Until this thread, I thought it was uniquely French. ---
**Author:** ![the\_art\_of\_rolling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/59ef9b/32.png) [@the\_art\_of\_rolling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_art_of_rolling)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-queens-english-pronunciation-of-maurice/944790/47 "2021-06-22T09:40:09Z")
I can only say that in my 70+ years in he U.K. I have never heard the name pronounced other than “Morris” unless actually referring to Maurice Chevalier. Whereas I would normally agree that “foreign” names should be pronounced as in the country of origin I must suggest that after the better part of a thousand years of usage the name can be considered English. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-queens-english-pronunciation-of-maurice/944790/48 "2021-06-22T09:42:07Z")
> [@UDS1](#): > > AmE tends to retain a “frenchified” pronuncation of French-origin words where BrE anglicises them - “garazh” versus “garridge”; “filay” versus “fillet”, and so on. This may be an instance of that phenomenon. Back in the 1990’s, I had an American business associate. He was often at our office in Canada, and I went down to his office in Fort Worth, Texas. Both of us loved cigars, and when I was in Texas, we would hit a tobacconist in downtown Fort Worth after dinner, for a nice cigar we could enjoy over brandy in my hotel’s bar. There are a number of ways to cut a cigar, to prepare it for smoking, but my associate always preferred a “ghee-yo-teen” cut (French pronounciation). Me, I asked the tobacconist for a “gill-o-teen” cut. My associate asked why I pronounced it that way, and I could only reply, “Well, that’s how we pronounce it in English.” ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 9:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-queens-english-pronunciation-of-maurice/944790/49 "2021-06-22T09:44:15Z")
> [@the\_art\_of\_rolling](#): > > Whereas I would normally agree that “foreign” names should be pronounced as in the country of origin I must suggest that after the better part of a thousand years of usage the name can be considered English. And I think that’s the crux of it. With English being a language of mixed French/German/Celt/Viking/You name it heritage, we have many loan words which people might assume to be ‘French’, but which have also become part of our language, and pronounced the way we pronounce things. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-queens-english-pronunciation-of-maurice/944790/50 "2021-06-22T10:02:38Z")
The Queen may pronounce words any way she desires to. After all, it’s _Her_ English. 😆 🧐 🍵 ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-queens-english-pronunciation-of-maurice/944790/51 "2021-06-22T11:34:00Z")
> > Jacques is not a name that appears in english\<\< Not in everyday life as a given name now, but the Shakespearean character “melancholy Jaques” is usually Anglicised to “Jay-kwiz” or “Jakes”. Likewise, the academic China specialist Martin Jacques pronounces it “Jakes”. ---
**Author:** ![FluffyBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecb155/32.png) [@FluffyBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FluffyBob)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-queens-english-pronunciation-of-maurice/944790/52 "2021-06-22T12:36:06Z")
Western Canadian here. Maurice is generally pronounced Morris. My uncle Maurice and my mother’s side of the family are francophones from St Boniface area of Winnipeg Manitoba (French speaking but not Quebecois). Their French pronunciation is ‘Mor-riss’, accent on second syllable with the ‘ss’ sound more trunicated than the typical english. They are puzzled by the ‘mor-rees’ pronunciation and do not think it is French. ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-queens-english-pronunciation-of-maurice/944790/53 "2021-06-22T16:57:14Z")
I know a Maurice, and the only time I’ve ever heard anyone call him “more EES” is when we went to America. He always uses ‘Morris’ and so does everyone else who knows him. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2021, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-queens-english-pronunciation-of-maurice/944790/54 "2021-06-23T00:07:28Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > No, that’s what the site looks like. But you’re supposed to click the blue button with the arrow and line to get to the next example. There are, as it says, 147 of them. > > That’s what the site is. It goes through videos, finding the word in the closed captions, and then shows the clips. > > I agree the way it is put together isn’t all that intuitive. The UX (user interface) is not good. I would have designed it with a list of each of the 147 options on the side, where you click to change the video to show the video for that particular one. > > I remember having the same issue when I first discovered the site. I’m not sure a difficult to access site with 147 (!) different examples to trawl through trumps the experiences of actual people. Especially if one of the examples if Maurice Chevalier - yes, I have heard people pronounce his name Mor-EES. But then I’ve also heard people say Yan for Jan Van Eyck, despite that not being the usual way the name Jan is said in the UK. Foreign names and British names get pronounced differently. Same goes for most countries. ---
**Author:** ![UDS1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e47774/32.png) [@UDS1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS1)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2021, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-queens-english-pronunciation-of-maurice/944790/55 "2021-06-23T00:44:00Z")
[quote=“SanVito, post:43, topic:944790”] Jack is the english equivalent. And there are a million similar examples, including my own first name.[/quote] Jack is not the English equivalent of Jacques. The English name corresponding to Jacques is James. Jack is a diminutive of John, and any similarity to Jacques is purely coincidental. [quote=“SanVito, post:43, topic:944790”] Maurice is a name that appears in both english and french, and we pronounce them differently. Hardly earth shattering[/quote] This. British people named Maurice invariably (in my experience) use the “Morris” pronunciation, as do other British people when referring to them. This doesn’t stop them using the “MorEES” pronunciation for, e.g., Maurice Chevalier, or anyone else known to use that pronunciation of their own name. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2021, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-queens-english-pronunciation-of-maurice/944790/56 "2021-06-23T05:03:51Z")
I understand now about that site. A pity the ingenuity of the search concept (that it picks up real-life pronunciations from video clips) isn’t matched in the explanation and presentation of the results. That said, if I’ve time, I could try to analyse a fair sample, but I’d be surprised if that turns up anything other than that the normal BrE usage is as “Morris” unless it’s in a foreign language, when we would get as close as we can to how they would pronounce it, as is only polite. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2021, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-queens-english-pronunciation-of-maurice/944790/57 "2021-06-23T12:25:52Z")
I think what confuses Americans (or, at least, me) is that there is a quite common anglicized version of Maurice (Morris). The logic goes, if you wanted it pronounced the English way, why not spell it the English way? Until this thread, I thought Mr. Gibb was just a weird exception. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum\_45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum_45/32/3385_2.png) [@eburacum\_45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum_45)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2021, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-queens-english-pronunciation-of-maurice/944790/58 "2021-06-23T12:37:32Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > I thought Mr. Gibb was just a weird exception. Maurice Micklewhite disagrees. ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2021, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-queens-english-pronunciation-of-maurice/944790/59 "2021-06-23T12:40:17Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > I think what confuses Americans (or, at least, me) is that there is a quite common anglicized version of Maurice (Morris). The logic goes, if you wanted it pronounced the English way, why not spell it the English way? Until this thread, I thought Mr. Gibb was just a weird exception. Because to English people, Morris is a surname. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2021, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-queens-english-pronunciation-of-maurice/944790/60 "2021-06-23T13:05:17Z")
> [@eburacum\_45](#): > > Maurice Micklewhite disagrees. If he hadn’t changed his name, no doubt, Americans would have stopped being confused about the pronunciation fifty years ago. As it stands now, it’s a toss up between two dead guys, the “Thank Heaven, for Little Girls” creep and the fourth most famous Gibb brother. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2021, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-queens-english-pronunciation-of-maurice/944790/61 "2021-06-23T13:14:04Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > As it stands now, it’s a toss up between two dead guys, the “Thank Heaven, for Little Girls” creep and the fourth most famous Gibb brother. And the guy who drew my avatar. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-queens-english-pronunciation-of-maurice/944790.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-queens-english-pronunciation-of-maurice/944790.md?page=4)