I’ve always heard and prounounced it myself as “Brenner.”
I’d always heard it as Brenner, myself.
Rick, can I ask the circumstances of your conversation with him?
Dit-friggin’-to.
Brenner
That is the way I’ve always heard it.
I don’t have my copy of “One Night in Bangkok” handy. How does the guy in that song say it? I think “Brinner”, but I’m not sure. Clearly, we should look to that as an authoritative source.
When I was a kid there was a revival of The King and I. This thread is making the commercial loop in my head. The voice over definitely pronounced it Brenner.
Seconded!
Is there anything that song cannot clarify?
A long time ago, I worked for a life insurance company. One of our agents had him as a client. One evening after the clerical staff had left the phone rang and I answered it.
You know the story from there.
BTW he was calling from Paris to ask a question about one of his policies.
Why I love the Dope, part bajillion and 6.
From what I remember of my Russian lessons way back: The cyrillic letters from KneadtoKnow’s link spell out “Brinner”, in case you were wondering. The И would translate to an “i” sound , while the Russian “e” sound would be this letter: “Є” (I hope the letters will show up when I post).
Purely anecdotal: I always pronounced it “Brinner”.
I’ve always pronounced it “Brinner”, and until this thread wasn’t even aware that some people say “Brenner”
I wasn’t either – till last evening, when I test-solved a puzzle that had a clue with wordplay based on a pronunciation of “Brinner.”
Since I’m a “Brenner” person myself, I was a little WTF.
I’ve always pronounced it “Brinner” but I’m sure I’ve heard plenty of people say it the other way.
As for “One Night in Bangkok” the preceding line is “… the creme de la creme of the chess world *in a * . . .” which would seem to indicate the pronunciation, at least in Mr. Tim Rice’s mind, is “Brinner”.
Luckily my office mate works from home on Tuesdays, because I have been muttering “Brinner-Brenner-Brinner-Brenner” in front of my computer for the last few minutes.
Having done that, I can say I fall on the Brenner side. Mostly.
By the way, twickster, I forgot to thwap you for the awful pun in the thread title. I tried to ignore it, but it wouldn’t go away.
Carry on. 
Brenner.
Now, that should be a pretty definitive answer, right there.
Brenner.
It’s the only way I’ve heard it either.
I think the fact he pronounces it Brenner, pretty well defines how you should say it.
Maybe he got tired of correcting people?
Can’t see how you get “Brenner” out of those letters, and I too have never heard that pronunciation. AFAIK, over here it’s exclusively “Brinner”.
Sure, but where’s the fun in that? Anyway, my last name is pretty hard to pronounce. Everyone in the area I grew up in, including those with the same name but unrelated to me, pronounce it one way. But there is a business in another area of the country with my last name in the name of the business. I called once to hear how they pronounced it on their automated answer system. Those fools mispronounced our name! How could they be so misguided? So, maybe Yul was wrong about his name too. Further speculation is definitely in order.
OK, I’m partially kidding, but I do wonder if there is consensus among the people who have the name.