How do you pronounce...

Chunkie said:
Someone told me that Dubarry is pronounced Doobray (emphasis on the "bray").

Is that correct?
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Doesn't matter how you say it.

You still look like a prat in tweed and stripy leather uniform.
 
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joosie said:
Yes, it's a French word meaning "waistcoat". Gee-lay is about right. I didn't realise people didn't know how to say it TBH, even before I moved to France I knew it wasn't a "gillet" :p

My best friend's mum pronounces chaff as "charf". Always has me in hysterics when she says it, it makes her sound so posh, and she's not!
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What's wrong with waistcoat I wonder...

As for "charf"... well!
 
My instructor is American so I don't do Dressage I do Dre-sarge with a slow Californian accent!

I also got stumped on Neue Schule, but then looked at their own you tube videos and realised that I'd been saying it wrong all this time its Nu-Ey-Shoe-ler not New Schoole!
 
cobden99 said:
What about breeches ? Breach-is or britch-is :)
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I'm old and we always said britches (at Pony Club it was always "b*tches in britches for the kids who turned up with all the gear and no idea ;)) But we may well have been wrong - at least in the pronunciation!;)

Gilet definitely has the silent T as mentioned above; but what about a fillet string on a rug? Or indeed a beef fillet? Again the T is silent in both, I'm sure, but the number of people who talk about a "fill-it" is always a surprise to me.
 
Ancient Hacker said:
Gilet definitely has the silent T as mentioned above; but what about a fillet string on a rug? Or indeed a beef fillet? Again the T is silent in both, I'm sure, but the number of people who talk about a "fill-it" is always a surprise to me.
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It probably is the same but I woudnt ask for a feel-ay steak - would sound too much like macdonalds filet-o-fish :) !!
 
Lolo said:
It is charf... In the same way I say barth and grarss- I thought that it depended upon where you were from?
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Dunno. I say barth and grarse, but I don't say charf. It's just wrong IMO :p But maybe it is regional and that's why I find it funny when my friend's mum says it, because "charf" doesn't fit the way she speaks, it is so out of place lol. I wonder if she had a Pony Club instructor when she was a kid who said "charf" and it has stayed with her!
 
joosie said:
Really, you say "pell-ham"? This made me giggle, I have NEVER heard anyone say that before... you're not from Texas are you? :D
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haha yes! hard to write phonetically, the ham isnt so pronounced, more like Pell-am, with a really soft h before the am. maybe like peh-lamb.. ish. Certainly not "um" lol.



Wasn't until I recently heard people saying Pe - Lumn..... that i though.. wow that's weird! :p

No im from scotland ;)
 
snopuma said:
My instructor is American so I don't do Dressage I do Dre-sarge with a slow Californian accent!

The Americans pronounce dressage, as do the French, with the accent on the second syllable: dressAGE. There is no r in the second syllable. The Brits accent the first syllable: DRESSage.

Filet is the same, with the accent on the second syllable: filLAY (the t is silent). Again, that is the French pronunciation. The same goes for ballet (balLAY), claret (claRAY), brochure (broSURE), and garage (gaRAGE), for example. These are all French words which the Americans pronounce in the Gallic way.

It's quite curious that the Americans pronounce French words in the French style, but Brits, who are so much closer, geographically, pronounce French words in the British manner.

I'm loving this thread!

What are charf, grarse and barth? Do you mean chaff, grass, and bath? I don't think I've ever heard anyone pronounce those 3 words with the r sound. Wait, my son knew a high school teacher who pronounced Washington as Warshington, put that's about it.
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Rutland - an American colleague of mine, whose wife is pretty big in the DR world over here, always talks about DreSARGE, accent on the second syllable and with a soft g. Maybe it depends which region they're from?
 
I'm so pleased others say charf!!! I've had it ripped out of me for years for saying it like that!!!
 
frannieuk said:
Rutland - an American colleague of mine, whose wife is pretty big in the DR world over here, always talks about DreSARGE, accent on the second syllable and with a soft g. Maybe it depends which region they're from?
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I'm American, from the East Coast, originally, and then lived in Hawaii for 20 years. I have NEVER hear the word dressage pronounced with an r in the second syllable. Yes, the g is always soft. Perhaps it is a regional pronunciation, but I have never come across it.
 
Oooh I have one!

Siegfried!? As in a Stubben Siegfried?

I want to say seg-fried (like egg-fried) but somehow I don't think that's correct :o
 
One that has me cringing is the pronunciation of Vehicle by some American areas

Veer Hickle!

The H is silent as in hotel, herb, honour

I laugh here in NZ when New Zealanders are faced with Worcester Street - they pronounce it War-ses-ter instead of Woos-ter.

One my grandad used to get real cranky about was the pronunciation of drawing - as kids do we used to pronounce it draw-ring.

Schedule is another one - I pronounce it shedule while others skedule

route - root
 
alainax said:
EH?

You say Otel, and erb? :confused:

Ive only ever heard people say Hotel, or Herb, unless they have a super strong regional accent or being slang.
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Correctly, it is "an 'otel", but that seems to have fallen by the wayside. I have recently started watching the Barefoot Contessa on the Food Network, and she says "'erb" every single time, and it drives me mad! I have since been told it is normal for the US. (But they don't speak English, anyway ;) )

I say 'shedule', but I definitely don't say 'skit' ;)
 
alainax said:
EH?

You say Otel, and erb? :confused:

Ive only ever heard people say Hotel, or Herb, unless they have a super strong regional accent or being slang.

Like this -
http://www.howjsay.com/index.php?word=hotel
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Yes! any word that is written with an before it either has a vowel as the first letter or it is a silent letter.

He stayed at an hotel, She addressed an envelope!

We do have to consider that I am in my 60's - this is what we were taught all those decades ago :D
 
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