“Coupe” and “coupon” have the same French root yet some people insist on pronouncing the latter “KYOO-pon”.
I can’t tell which vowel sounds you are trying to distinguish here. Please use IPA (that goes for everybody).
Lauryn Hill, between songs on her Unplugged album, says “I’m just suckin’ on my lozenger.” She’s from New Jersey. My mom, of Pennsylvania-Ohio origin, also has been heard to say lozenger.
That’s just a baloney rationalization after the fact and also isn’t true. The word means ‘long chair’ in French.
Most Scots are not Celts, no. But some are, yes. (Some Scots speak Gaelic, most speak English. Historically, lots have Gaelic heritage, but in some cases quite far back, and in some areas not at all. Some of the other historical groups are Celtic, like the Picts, but some, like the Norse, are not.)
Edit: and even at Celtic Studies conferences, some of the Scots (and French) use the “Selt” pronunciation; everyone else usually says “Kelt.”
We don’t all read IPA and some of us don’t have the IPA symbols on our computers. When someone uses IPA I can see the symbols on my phone but my tablet renders them as little squares with an X inside.
I am glad someone came in and said this, in a better fashion than I would have.
Everyone knows what “carry-okey” is even though it should be pronounced (as it’s spelled “karaoke”). The four syllables are:
ka ra o keh
I know I’m tilting at windmills here, but it’s not that hard.
Err. To pronounce it as “air” is neither human nor divine.
And “syrup” is not pronounced “SURR-up.” It’s “SIHR-up.”
And “extraordinary” is “ex-TROR-di-nar-y.” And the first “a” is silent.
I think you’ll find, if you *were *inclined to be an originalist-type pedant, that the *Scots*are, indeed, Celtic, and it’s the *Scottish *who are mostly not. But that’s only if you cared about what things originally were called, of course…
This.
It doesn’t matter how some pedant thinks a place name is “supposed to be” pronounced; it only matters what the people who live there or go to school there say the pronunciation is.
I live in Illinois. Despite its French-looking spelling, it is not pronounced Eel-in-WAH. We have a river (and a town named after it) called Desplaines. It is NOT pronounced Day-PLAHN. The southern Illinois city of Cairo is pronounced CARE-o.
Actually, this extends beyond just place names. I once laughed out loud when Alex Trebeck (who I have always found to be a bit pretentious) read a question about the Jimi Hendrix song he pronounced “Voodoo Chee-LAY”.
There was a fair-sized thread on this topic a few years ago. Rather tangled in places: but general gist if I understand rightly, is that the similar but not identical ranges of such marsupial creatures in the Americas, and Australasia: are properly called opossums in the former (though colloquial usage in the USA is often “possum”); and possums in the latter.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=812552&highlight=opossum
A limerick which I’ve always liked, “by and for” the ignorant as above, re this issue:
I’m hanged if I ever shall know
If Van Gogh is Van Goff, or Van Go –
This damned thing re the name
Has me beat; and, with shame,
Makes my highbrows feel awfully low.
You know why this happened though, right? It’s not a mystery.
Sports teams originated with social clubs — Mutual Club, Athletic Club, Olympic Club, Kekionga Club, Western Club, Metropolitan Club, Knickerbocker Club, Forest City Club, Atlantic Club, Eckford Club, National Club, Elm City Club, Centennial Club, Hartford Club, Resolute Club, Maryland Club, Lord Baltimore Club, etc.
A member of the Mutual Club could be called, informally at first, “a Mutual,” so a team formed from members of the Mutual Club was “the Mutuals.” So you get the Mutuals, the Athletics, the Olympics, the Kekiongas, the Westerns, the Metropolitans (Mets), the Knickerbockers (Knicks), the Forest Citys, the Atlantics, the Eckfords, the Nationals, the Elm Citys, the Centennials, the Hartfords, the Resolutes, the Marylands, the Lord Baltimores, etc.
Through the same process, a member of the Celtic Club is a Celtic, and the club’s team is the Celtics.
You don’t go around insisting that the Philadelphia (now Oakland) Athletics call themselves the Athletes, do you?
Until a certain age I pronounced sherbet as “sherbert” because key adults at that time of my life had a strong NYC accent and didn’t really pronounce the letter R unless it was at the beginning of a word. Mustard sounded like “mustid” and so forth. In turn, in many cases I guess I subconciouisly added an R to “compensate”.
If almost every American pronounces it wrong, then it has become the standard American pronunciation and is no longer wrong.
This is standard Baltimorese.
A choir director once told our choir that “love” was supposed to be pronounced “Lov” but it was mutated by society to “Luv.” Don’t know if that’s true.
Well, living in a free country implies the freedom to be factually wrong. Just out of curiosity, though, what the hell does “notre” mean?
But it IS “San PEEdro,” for most residents, if you’re talking about the neighborhood in Los Angeles. Just as it’s generally “Loss ANN-juh-less,” no matter what it would be in the original Spanish. For that matter it really is “Kay-ro,” Illinois (Cairo) and “LYE-ma,” Ohio (Lima) and “FONN-du-LACK,” Wisconsin and “DES-planes,” Illinois, and on and on. Place names are correctly pronounced by the people who live there.
Notre is French for English “our”. Notre Dame is the Catholic epithet “Our Lady” (referring to the Virgin Mary).
EDIT: “Our Lady” typically preceded a place name (either generic or specific). The full name of Notre Dame is “University of Notre Dame du Lac“ ( … Our Lady of the Lake).
IPA is a complete and total mess. Incomprehensible to almost everyone.
So, good luck with that.
Not according to Nat King Cole.