# White people. How do you pronounce 50 Cent? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 11, 2011, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-people-how-do-you-pronounce-50-cent/581588 "2011-05-11T23:48:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2011, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-people-how-do-you-pronounce-50-cent/581588/101 "2011-05-12T14:02:02Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > Where did “get your nails/hair did” come from, anyway? That’s the one that makes me cringe nails on a blackboard style whenever I hear it. Missy Elliot. Although, but the time she made it “white people famous,” black people probably already thought it was lame. ---
**Author:** ![yoyodyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a9a28c/32.png) [@yoyodyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yoyodyne)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2011, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-people-how-do-you-pronounce-50-cent/581588/102 "2011-05-12T14:07:50Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > Wasn’t that Chef’s Dad and that whole deal about “two-fiddy” and the Loch Ness Monster and all that? > **[Loch Ness Monster - South Park | South Park Studios US](https://southpark.cc.com/video-clips/o2h2pa/south-park-loch-ness-monster)** > > The boys listen to Chef's dad's stories ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2011, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-people-how-do-you-pronounce-50-cent/581588/103 "2011-05-12T14:23:02Z")
> [@Nzinga\_Seated](#): > > [Here ya go.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWG8rCAz9WI) > > ETA: I pronounce it like 50 does in that interview. fi’tee. The interviewer seems to be saying ‘fiddy’. That settles it for me. I definitely heard him say Fifty. See, I don’t actually care much about the guy and don’t hear him say his name that often, only other people, and other people will put their own dialect spin on it. Besides, it’s a rapper’s stage name, and “Fiddy Cent” flows a lot better than “Fifty Cent,” so I assumed what I heard was correct. ---
**Author:** ![scudsucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scudsucker/32/14101_2.png) [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2011, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-people-how-do-you-pronounce-50-cent/581588/104 "2011-05-12T14:32:48Z")
I say it in the [Queen’s English](http://twitter.com/english50cent) ---
**Author:** ![heathen\_earthling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/13edae/32.png) [@heathen\_earthling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/heathen_earthling)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2011, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-people-how-do-you-pronounce-50-cent/581588/105 "2011-05-12T14:36:28Z")
I think I picked up “Fiddy Cent” from _Mad TV_. 50 Cent is definitely one of those celebrities I am more familiar with through parody than through their actual work. I never made the connection between the “Fiddy” pronunciation and a black accent; I assumed it was either something 50 Cent made up to make the name more unique, or just an individual speech habit of his. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2011, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-people-how-do-you-pronounce-50-cent/581588/106 "2011-05-12T14:40:55Z")
On his show, Jay Leno asked Chelsea Handler if it was “Fiddy,” and she replied “I call him Curtis when we’re having sex.” ---
**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:** [May 12, 2011, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-people-how-do-you-pronounce-50-cent/581588/107 "2011-05-12T14:41:21Z")
I’d never say “Fiddy.” That sounds stupid. It never even occurred to me that it would be anything other than “Fifty Cent.” Not that I’ve heard his name spoken more than a handful of times. I mostly just see it in print. ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2011, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-people-how-do-you-pronounce-50-cent/581588/108 "2011-05-12T14:57:39Z")
I pronounce it fiddy like black people do as evidenced in **yoyodynes** post 102. ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2011, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-people-how-do-you-pronounce-50-cent/581588/109 "2011-05-12T15:16:11Z")
> [@scudsucker](#): > > I say it in the [Queen’s English](http://twitter.com/english50cent) I say it in cockney - Arfur Dollar. ---
**Author:** ![enomaj](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/59ef9b/32.png) [@enomaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enomaj)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2011, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-people-how-do-you-pronounce-50-cent/581588/110 "2011-05-12T20:12:12Z")
> [@Harmonious\_Discord](#): > > I never heard of the guy. I don’t have a way to say the name. I’ll never need to say the name. You’ve never heard of whom? [This video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAxAVHzeEwM) belongs in this thread. Oh and when Mookie went to get his money from Sal after burning down Sal’s Pizzeria, his pay was “two fiddy”. ---
**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:** [May 13, 2011, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-people-how-do-you-pronounce-50-cent/581588/111 "2011-05-13T00:50:03Z")
Moved from IMHO to Cafe Society. ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2011, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-people-how-do-you-pronounce-50-cent/581588/112 "2011-05-13T01:29:57Z")
What ever happened to that Two Pack fellow? ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2011, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-people-how-do-you-pronounce-50-cent/581588/113 "2011-05-13T01:44:18Z")
Heh, just got on a computer where I could listen to that Fifty Cent pronunciation clip. I get where you’re coming from, **Nzinga** - it does sound as though the interviewer is trying SO hard to be ‘with it’ that he pronounces the name in what he expects to be the way a black rapper would pronounce it, even when said black rapper says it as a very clear fifty. (Well, American fifty, where the t is almost a d, but it’s still not fiddy). > [@Polerius](#): > > Out of curiosity, if a band was called “Don’t ask” but its members pronounced it “Don’t ax”, would you guys pronounce it like it’s spelled or how they pronounce it? I’d say ‘Don’t Ask’ with my British RP accent because it would sound much more ridiculous to try to affect any other pronunciation. If I spoke British RP and had a band called ‘Don’t Ask’ then I wouldn’t expect anyone to change their pronunciation to suit mine either. > [@Sarahfeena](#): > > I agree with all of this, but due to the wonders of the internet, I have found it can be a minefield, even with my own name. I have noticed that there are a couple different pronunciations of Sarah, the way we pronounce it here in the midwest “SARE-uh,” and the more east-coast/British pronunciation “SAH-ruh.” I have always my whole life figured this was an accent thing, and I have been called both. > > Come to find out, some people are much more particular than I am about how it’s pronounced, more like an ANNdrea/OHNdrea thing, and they get butthurt if it’s not said “correctly.” ALSO that it is somehow tied into the spelling for some people, that with an H it’s one pronunciation, and without the H it’s the other. > > Damned if I knew any of this. I’ve seen this a lot, but although the various British accents would say Andrea and Sarah in different ways, I can’t think of any that would say SAH-ruh and OHN-drea (or rather, AHND-drea). It’s a bit of a misconception that whenever American accents say ‘ay’ we say ‘ah.’ It happens, but not universally. The British RP pronunciation of Sarah is extremely close to the American Mid-West pronunciation. But Sara is SAH-ruh. This first annoyed me in Beverly Hills 90210 when I was a kid. No, Ahhhndrea, pronouncing your name that way is not the British way - nobody says it like that here. It just makes you sound pretentious to us as well as your schoolmates. ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2011, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-people-how-do-you-pronounce-50-cent/581588/114 "2011-05-13T02:22:37Z")
I actually use “Fiddy” more often- but only because chances are if I’m ever referring to him I’m doing it ironically. But if I were, for some reason, seriously discussing him, I’d use “Fifty”. ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2011, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-people-how-do-you-pronounce-50-cent/581588/115 "2011-05-13T02:29:10Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > I’ve seen this a lot, but although the various British accents would say Andrea and Sarah in different ways, I can’t think of any that would say SAH-ruh and OHN-drea (or rather, AHND-drea). It’s a bit of a misconception that whenever American accents say ‘ay’ we say ‘ah.’ It happens, but not universally. The British RP pronunciation of Sarah is extremely close to the American Mid-West pronunciation. But Sara is SAH-ruh. > > This first annoyed me in Beverly Hills 90210 when I was a kid. No, Ahhhndrea, pronouncing your name that way is not the British way - nobody says it like that here. It just makes you sound pretentious to us as well as your schoolmates. I didn’t mean that SAH-ruh and OHN-drea are both British pronunciations, only that ANN-drea and OHN-drea are not (to me) interchangeable pronunciations. People with that name pronounce it one way or another, and consider it “wrong” when it’s pronounced the other way. Whereas with Sarah, I just consider it an accent difference, and not a totally different pronunciation of the name. And I never, ever thought that Sara is pronounced differently from Sarah, that’s just bizarre to me. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2011, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-people-how-do-you-pronounce-50-cent/581588/116 "2011-05-13T03:15:29Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > Here…have some budder. We godda get tuhgether layder, donyou think? 😉 > > Yep, it’s a Midwest thing, and in this case, Chicagoland \*is \*part of the Midwest. It’s not so much a Midwest thing as a general American accent thing. And the sound isn’t really a “d” (at least not like the “d” in “dog”), but rather an [alveolar flap.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intervocalic_alveolar_flapping) Specifically, the phenomenon is called intervocalic alveolar flapping, as it occurs when “t” or “d” sounds are positioned in between vowel sounds. It’s also a feature of Australian and New Zealand dialects. The only time I really hear North American accents without flapping is on NPR, where they have a tendency to over-enunciate everything. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2011, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-people-how-do-you-pronounce-50-cent/581588/117 "2011-05-13T06:01:29Z")
> [@Sarahfeena](#): > > I didn’t mean that SAH-ruh and OHN-drea are both British pronunciations, only that ANN-drea and OHN-drea are not (to me) interchangeable pronunciations. People with that name pronounce it one way or another, and consider it “wrong” when it’s pronounced the other way. Whereas with Sarah, I just consider it an accent difference, and not a totally different pronunciation of the name. And I never, ever thought that Sara is pronounced differently from Sarah, that’s just bizarre to me. ANN-drea and OHN-drea aren’t interchangeable pronunciatons for me either. Well, we don’t say ‘OHN,’ but I know the pronunciation you mean, and that is not the norm for Andrea. Sara, at least in my experience, has been around as individual name for a long time, so it’s not strange that it has a different pronunciation to Sarah. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2011, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-people-how-do-you-pronounce-50-cent/581588/118 "2011-05-13T06:40:35Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > It’s not so much a Midwest thing as a general American accent thing. And the sound isn’t really a “d” (at least not like the “d” in “dog”), but rather an [alveolar flap.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intervocalic_alveolar_flapping) Specifically, the phenomenon is called intervocalic alveolar flapping, as it occurs when “t” or “d” sounds are positioned in between vowel sounds. It’s also a feature of Australian and New Zealand dialects. The only time I really hear North American accents without flapping is on NPR, where they have a tendency to over-enunciate everything. Wasn’t there a movie or a TV show (The Wire? Law & Order?) where they identified the bad guy because he didn’t flap? I also remember a young Will Smith teaching himself not to flap (or drop the _f_) when pronouncing “bottle of beer” in the movie “Six Degrees of Separation.” I think that was his first acting gig, even before “Fresh Prince of Bel Air.” ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2011, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-people-how-do-you-pronounce-50-cent/581588/119 "2011-05-13T07:35:28Z")
> [@steronz](#): > > It’s rapper slang, and white people love them some rapper slang. Eerbody in da club knows that. > > I doubt that most white people think that every black person is incapable of saying “fifty.” It _is_ fun to say “fiddy” every once in a while. Also, it’s fun to say “eerbody” and “get your nails did” and all the other stupid little bits of slang that white people have stolen from black people and made uncool. > > /white guy This may not be fair, but I say ‘eerbody’ like eeer’buu’daaah! and ‘get yer nails did’ as a way to be…obnoxious. like i want to convey a feeling. generally, when i exaggerate. it’s not a way of making anything cool so much as it is a way of being (in a white person bitch way) facetious. my best friend of 12+ years and i exaggerate about 90 per cent of our speech - from stuff like that to accents to ‘locker room talk’ to private jokes. it’s like we don’t know to be serious. but when white people use stuff like that as part of their regular speech, i do get uncomfortable. the only things i can think of that came into my vernacular after awhile were ‘vato’ (not the gangbanger kind - more of the ‘dude’) and a couple of iconic movie quotes. still, there’s no way he pronounces it ‘fifty’. fi’tee, maybe, but not _fifty._ i think non-white people just have a hard time pronouncing it like he does, since it’s clearly distinct from _fifty_. since he uses words like ‘da’ for ‘the’, the disconnect is understandable. ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2011, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-people-how-do-you-pronounce-50-cent/581588/120 "2011-05-13T07:38:18Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > Sara, at least in my experience, has been around as individual name for a long time, so it’s not strange that it has a different pronunciation to Sarah. Yup…the former sounds a little…Minnesotian. :o [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-people-how-do-you-pronounce-50-cent/581588.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-people-how-do-you-pronounce-50-cent/581588.md?page=7)