# Why do brand names have different pronunications across the English speaking world?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-brand-names-have-different-pronunications-across-the-english-speaking-world/604301
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [November 28, 2011, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-brand-names-have-different-pronunications-across-the-english-speaking-world/604301 "2011-11-28T01:44:54Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2011, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-brand-names-have-different-pronunications-across-the-english-speaking-world/604301/21 "2011-11-28T19:23:30Z")
In the U.K. a Swiss company sold and sells, a lot of chocolate products.
The company is called Nestles.
For decades Brits pronounced it Ness ulls.
But a little while back the company had a big advertising campaign to get people to pronounce it the Swiss French way, as in Nez Lay.
It was successful though I wondered why they bothered.
There has been a recent campaign by a company that makes cleaning products that they sell in many countries named as I recall Jif., they want us to say Zif, as thats how apparently it sounds everywhere else.
Unfortunately the correct pronunciation has connotations of S.T.D.s.
And lastly NAAFIs (British version of P.Xs) in Europe used to have a bread brand named Bums, which was just as good as other brands and actually a little cheaper.
But squaddies wives were too embarassed to say the name so sales were poor.
Until they were told that the correct way to say it was Boooms, and then sales took off.
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### Author:  [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2011, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-brand-names-have-different-pronunications-across-the-english-speaking-world/604301/22 "2011-11-28T20:30:44Z")
> [@obfusciatrist](#):
>
> American: uh-DEE-duhz
> German AH-di-dahz
>
> Or at least so my mom conveyed was how all the Germans pronounced it. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard a German pronounce it myself. (Her first story was was about how someone called her to talk about Adidas and she had no idea what they meant because of the pronunciation.)
I’d probably have to go with the Germans on this one since Adidas or Adi-das were named after Adolph “Adi” Dassler.
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### Author:  [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2011, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-brand-names-have-different-pronunications-across-the-english-speaking-world/604301/23 "2011-11-28T21:00:40Z")
I agree. In a rational world we’d pronounce it the German way.
I was just pointing it out as an example to the OP of a company so not being bothered by differences in pronunciation that they didn’t even worry about it in internal conversations (let alone trying to change customer behavior).
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### Author:  [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2011, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-brand-names-have-different-pronunications-across-the-english-speaking-world/604301/24 "2011-11-28T23:04:32Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#):
>
> In my US experience, nobody ever says “Citroën” at all. But if they did it’d be SIT-rone where rone sounds like bone. Or at least that’s what one heard back in the 60s & 70s when such things could still occasionally be seen or talked about in the US.
That’s the way we say it in the UK as well. The possibility of there being another pronunciation was only introduced to me once I started seeing someone that spent a good few years of her teens in France. We had really exciting conversations.
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### Author:  [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypnagogic_Jerk)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2011, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-brand-names-have-different-pronunications-across-the-english-speaking-world/604301/25 "2011-11-28T23:27:13Z")
> [@Cunctator](#):
>
> I remember when the Hotel Ibis chain was established in Australia. The owners said they were determined to use the French pronunciation EEH-BEE.
I don’t know what they were going for, since the ‘s’ in “Ibis” in French is definitely pronounced in French.
> [@thelurkinghorror](#):
>
> Also, Nissan’s predecessor Datsun is actually pronounced okay in American English (and maybe UK, no idea what it sounded like there).
If I can trust Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, “daat-sun”.
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### Author:  [@PaulParkhead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PaulParkhead)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2011, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-brand-names-have-different-pronunications-across-the-english-speaking-world/604301/26 "2011-11-28T23:43:20Z")
> [@amanset](#):
>
> That’s the way we say it in the UK as well. The possibility of there being another pronunciation was only introduced to me once I started seeing someone that spent a good few years of her teens in France. We had really exciting conversations.
We do? I’ve always said “SIT-ro-en”.
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### Author:  [@PaulParkhead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PaulParkhead)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2011, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-brand-names-have-different-pronunications-across-the-english-speaking-world/604301/27 "2011-11-28T23:47:24Z")
> [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](#):
>
> If I can trust Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, “daat-sun”.
That’s the way I remember it pronounced. Hearing that this is not correct surprises me, since I always thought the point of transliteration is to render the word such that speakers of the second language will at least attempt to pronounce it the way it is spoken in the original language.
As a GQ question, am I wrong about this?
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### Author:  [@amarone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarone)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2011, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-brand-names-have-different-pronunications-across-the-english-speaking-world/604301/28 "2011-11-29T00:07:39Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#):
>
> In my US experience, all ordinary folks say “porsh”. People who are car enthusiasts, Porshe owners, Porshe dealers, aftermarket parts folks etc, tend to say “porsh-uh”. It’s about 60/40 or 70/30 in favor of porsh-uh. It’s not universal.
It’s much the same in the UK. I watched some early series Top Gear episodes recently and Richard Hammond was saying “porsh” then. At some point he converts to “porsh-uh”.
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2011, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-brand-names-have-different-pronunications-across-the-english-speaking-world/604301/29 "2011-11-29T00:42:18Z")
What about products that intentionally use different spelling/pronunciations?
In the US, it’s Oil Of Olay. In the UK, it’s Oil of Ulay. Or at least it used to be-- I think they now market it under the same name everywhere.
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### Author:  [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2011, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-brand-names-have-different-pronunications-across-the-english-speaking-world/604301/30 "2011-11-29T00:53:43Z")
Yep mentioned the change in post number six above.
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### Author:  [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2011, 10:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-brand-names-have-different-pronunications-across-the-english-speaking-world/604301/31 "2011-11-29T10:21:16Z")
And then there’s the episode in A Fish Called Wanda when Otto wonders why Archibald Leach has named his daughter, Portia, after a car.
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### Author:  [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2011, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-brand-names-have-different-pronunications-across-the-english-speaking-world/604301/32 "2011-11-29T11:15:08Z")
> [@PaulParkhead](#):
>
> We do? I’ve always said “SIT-ro-en”.
Every British person I’ve heard saying the word (me included) says “SIT-ruhn”. I know how it’s meant to be pronounced, but that seems a bit affected in English. (Of course, if you ignore the diaeresis in French, the pronunciation comes rather close to “citron”, meaning lemon…) I’ve never heard it pronounced to rhyme with bone, though.
Likewise with Peugeot, I’ve always heard “PER-zho” in British English, and Wikipedia [agrees](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peugeot) with that, more or less:
> [@](#):
>
> The name is pronounced [pøˈʒo] in French, and is frequently pronounced /ˈpɝːʒoʊ/ (pur-zhoh) in British English.
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### Author:  [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2011, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-brand-names-have-different-pronunications-across-the-english-speaking-world/604301/33 "2011-11-29T13:33:10Z")
> [@Floater](#):
>
> And then there’s the episode in A Fish Called Wanda when Otto wonders why Archibald Leach has named his daughter, Portia, after a car.
[nitpick]Actually it’s Wanda (the woman not the fish) who says this to Archibald as an example of how stupid Otto is. As she at the time desperately needs to make Otto seem a fool I don’t think she is a reliable reporter.
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### Author:  [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2011, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-brand-names-have-different-pronunications-across-the-english-speaking-world/604301/34 "2011-11-30T03:04:50Z")
> [@obfusciatrist](#):
>
> Jaguar tried (it seems to me that I haven’t heard it in a while, but maybe I’ve just grown used to it) to with commercials that made the word three syllables long (jag-you-are vs. jag-whar) and everybody I knew made fun of them for it.
I’ve heard more people make fun of them for the incredible unreliability of their cars, no matter how the name is pronounced.
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### Author:  [@cckerberos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cckerberos)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2011, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-brand-names-have-different-pronunications-across-the-english-speaking-world/604301/35 "2011-11-30T04:41:54Z")
> [@PaulParkhead](#):
>
> That’s the way I remember it pronounced. Hearing that this is not correct surprises me, since I always thought the point of transliteration is to render the word such that speakers of the second language will at least attempt to pronounce it the way it is spoken in the original language.
>
> As a GQ question, am I wrong about this?
The goal of transliteration really depends on who is doing the transliterating. Most transliteration systems actually created by non-Europeans tend to be challenging for Europeans to pronounce correctly. As an example the Japanese mountain that is written “Fuji” in the romanization system developed by an American missionary is written “Huzi” in the romanization system developed and officially adopted by the Japanese government. And most non-native Chinese learners find Pinyin challenging.
Of course, even transliterations created by non-natives can be difficult if the pronunciations used by the creator’s language differ from that of the reader.
> [@thelurkinghorror](#):
>
> Also, Nissan’s predecessor Datsun is actually pronounced okay in American English (and maybe UK, no idea what it sounded like there). It Japan it was “dattosan,” not “da-tsun.”
As reflected by their original spelling, Datson. I’m not sure why they changed the spelling later… seems to just invite some confusion.
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### Author:  [@pilot141](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pilot141)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2011, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-brand-names-have-different-pronunications-across-the-english-speaking-world/604301/36 "2011-11-30T10:51:35Z")
> [@Colophon](#):
>
> Every British person I’ve heard saying the word (me included) says “SIT-ruhn”. I know how it’s meant to be pronounced, but that seems a bit affected in English. (Of course, if you ignore the diaeresis in French, the pronunciation comes rather close to “citron”, meaning lemon…) I’ve never heard it pronounced to rhyme with bone, though.
>
> Likewise with Peugeot, I’ve always heard “PER-zho” in British English, and Wikipedia [agrees](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peugeot) with that, more or less:
Which is why on my recent trip to France whenever my wife asked me what kind of car we were in (taxi) I always said “Renault”. I got some looks from drivers (mostly Citroen guys) but then distracted her by pointing out the numerous Audi and Mercedes taxis that we could be in.
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### Author:  [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2011, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-brand-names-have-different-pronunications-across-the-english-speaking-world/604301/37 "2011-11-30T12:38:39Z")
> [@cckerberos](#):
>
> The goal of transliteration really depends on who is doing the transliterating. Most transliteration systems actually created by non-Europeans tend to be challenging for Europeans to pronounce correctly.
\
What you describe is called transcription. Transliteration is a one by one conversion from one alphabet to another.
\
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### Author:  [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2011, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-brand-names-have-different-pronunications-across-the-english-speaking-world/604301/38 "2011-11-30T13:06:40Z")
> [@pilot141](#):
>
> Which is why on my recent trip to France whenever my wife asked me what kind of car we were in (taxi) I always said “Renault”.
Yeah, but I bet you said “REN-oh”, right? In France it’s more like “ruh-NO”.
Edit: Actually, if you’re American maybe you said “ree-NO”? This is too confusing…
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### Author:  [@aerodave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aerodave)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2011, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-brand-names-have-different-pronunications-across-the-english-speaking-world/604301/39 "2011-11-30T13:47:37Z")
Of the Renaults, Peugeots, and Citroëns, the only ones any Americans I knew were driving in my lifetime were Renaults. And for what it’s worth, everyone pronounced it “reh-NO”
I love Top Gear, and have for years. But I still find the way those guys pronounce a lot of brand names very jarring. No matter how many times I hear it, “NISS-n” will never sound right.
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### Author:  [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2011, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-brand-names-have-different-pronunications-across-the-english-speaking-world/604301/40 "2011-11-30T17:15:08Z")
The only French cars I’ve every seen in the US are Peugeots. I can’t recall seeing the other two. That’s not counting fancy-pants cars like Bugattis, which I might’ve seen as a display.
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