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Had to jump in - I was in Michael's with my upline a couple weeks ago, and she kept saying "grossgrain" and I finally leaned over and very quietly said, "it's grow-grain, the s is silent."
I AM A WORD PERSON!
__________________ Kathy Wrose "Fun must be always." - Tomas Hertl, San Jose Sharks "It was fun." - Kirk, Star Trek: Generations
You know, toile & grosgrain aren't the only French-originated words that get mispronounced or misspelled - how about voila? (Bet you've seen it written "walla"). And nada (yeah, ok, it's Spanish) - ever seen people write it as "notta"?
I was 12 before I really realized that EVERYBODY wasn't bilingual so mispronounciation of french derivitives still surprises me on some levels!
The one that still gets me is "pot pourri"
The way it was explained to me was "pourri" as meaning gone off, gone bad, rotted - so when my auntie got a bowl of "pahtpoorie" and was happy about it I never equated it to the word "poepooree" meaning saved flowers that have gone off. So when I saw a fragrance called "pot pourri" in a store, I thought it was a JOKE!
The demo one that hasn't been mentioned is Liquid Applique!
liquid AP-PLEE-KAY !
ALSO LOO-MEE-EHR =Lumiere
it means light
that's why the candlestick guy in Beauty and the Beast is named this!
My girlfriend is laughing and she adds that her gifted son, who was reading far above his grade level, wanted to be rich so he could have a "chafed-fur driven lime-oh-shine" My friend said "a chauffeur-driven limousine?" and he said of course he wanted one of those too! Never having had it read out loud how could he have known!
anyone have any pet-peevey phrases?
mine are "rule of thumb" and "mack-daddy" so sexist in origin! and so over-used !
I was 12 before I really realized that EVERYBODY wasn't bilingual so mispronounciation of french derivitives still surprises me on some levels!
The one that still gets me is "pot pourri"
The way it was explained to me was "pourri" as meaning gone off, gone bad, rotted - so when my auntie got a bowl of "pahtpoorie" and was happy about it I never equated it to the word "poepooree" meaning saved flowers that have gone off. So when I saw a fragrance called "pot pourri" in a store, I thought it was a JOKE!
The demo one that hasn't been mentioned is Liquid Applique!
liquid AP-PLEE-KAY !
ALSO LOO-MEE-EHR =Lumiere
it means light
that's why the candlestick guy in Beauty and the Beast is named this!
My girlfriend is laughing and she adds that her gifted son, who was reading far above his grade level, wanted to be rich so he could have a "chafed-fur driven lime-oh-shine" My friend said "a chauffeur-driven limousine?" and he said of course he wanted one of those too! Never having had it read out loud how could he have known!
anyone have any pet-peevey phrases?
mine are "rule of thumb" and "mack-daddy" so sexist in origin! and so over-used !
argh! lost a carefully-crafted post!
sorry if this is double
her's the gist
liquid AP-PLEE-KAY not unique=applique
it means to apply ; it's also a quilting term when something goes on top of something else
LOO-MEE-EHR = Lumiere
it means light ; it's the name of the candlestick valet (val-ay...LOL) in Beauty and the Beast
also : I'm pet-peevey about POE-POO-REE = pot pourri
and the phrases "rule of thumb" and "mack daddy"...so sexist and stupid!
Hey, I hope nobody thinks this thread is mean spirited or is putting folks down for mispronunciations. As a previous poster pointed out, if you see a word & haven't ever heard it pronounced, the mispronunciations people have posted are perfectly logical! Same thing for words you've only heard but haven't seen in writing. Nobody's perfect! (Well, except my son - he's a teenager & they're pretty sure they're perfect!)
Yes, it is pronounced "grow-grain" (but only if you feed cows and use ribbon) :lol: . To really pronounce it the french way, you have to roll the r way back in your throat! GRRRRoh' gRRRane! (the emphasis is on the grrroh)
Vive la embellishments!
I've discovered that a lot of very educated people have at least one word that they knew in their youth as two words - one they read, and one they heard.
For an old boyfriend, it was "yacht." The boat he had heard of was the correct way to pronounce that. (yot) The other boat, a yatchet (like hatchet) was one he'd read about.
For me it was asylum. Az-ih-lum, and uh-sigh-lum.
At some point you realize it's the same word...... then you are embarrassed but it's funny.
The English language is VERY difficult - esp. with all our imported words. No wonder so many of us screw it up somewhere.
A lot of people say "Acrosst" for "across".... DH used to, until I told him it drove me nuts.
__________________ Kathy Wrose "Fun must be always." - Tomas Hertl, San Jose Sharks "It was fun." - Kirk, Star Trek: Generations
Yes, it is pronounced "grow-grain" (but only if you feed cows and use ribbon) :lol: . To really pronounce it the french way, you have to roll the r way back in your throat! GRRRRoh' gRRRane! (the emphasis is on the grrroh)
Vive la embellishments!
Hey it does sound better that way but I have to think of how to say it. French is cool. I have a friend who is fluent and said that if you don't learn it as a first language by age 3-4 and try to learn it as an adult it is much harder to learn because french uses parts of our mouth and throat English doesn't and our body doesn't remember how to. Spanish was easy for me but I think french would be hard.
__________________ Me in my YUCKEE old Hilton room at Convention 2005. WOO HOO WOO HOO HOO
Ditto for Japanese, or any language that uses sounds that your native language doesn't use.
If you don't learn it early, you will almost certainly never be able to learn it.
So why do we start teaching languages in high school? There are places that start a little earlier, yet every time this is introduced in earlier grades, whenever times are tough, it's the first thing to get cut.
__________________ Kathy Wrose "Fun must be always." - Tomas Hertl, San Jose Sharks "It was fun." - Kirk, Star Trek: Generations
Since there are other hijacks, the word is mauve and it really should be pronounced mohve (rhymes with drove).
So I started a twall card, which I cut with my coll 'uz ul and used a grow-grain ribbon in moh ve then decided to app lick ay the edges then snipped it with my fiskaahs!
Since there are other hijacks, the word is mauve and it really should be pronounced mohve (rhymes with drove).
So I started a twall card, which I cut with my coll 'uz ul and used a grow-grain ribbon in moh ve then decided to app lick ay the edges then snipped it with my fiskaahs!
Since there are other hijacks, the word is mauve and it really should be pronounced mohve (rhymes with drove).
So I started a twall card, which I cut with my coll 'uz ul and used a grow-grain ribbon in moh ve then decided to app lick ay the edges then snipped it with my fiskaahs!
I'm still looking for someone to explain how they got "farv" (rhymes with carve) from Favre (as in Brett who is returning to the Green Bay Packers for at lease one more season.) :o :lol:
I'm still looking for someone to explain how they got "farv" (rhymes with carve) from Favre (as in Brett who is returning to the Green Bay Packers for at lease one more season.) :o :lol:
This reminds me of the movie"There's Something About Mary" where Ben Stiller tries to pronounce his name and says "Brett Fahv-ruh" :lol:
I've discovered that a lot of very educated people have at least one word that they knew in their youth as two words - one they read, and one they heard.
Isn't this true... I remember the summer I went to an English camp (keeping in mind I'm French Canadian and only knew some basic English learned in school back then). After a race, the other kids kept saying they were tired, which was a new word for me, but I deduced from the context that it meant exausted. I remember that night, after everyone went to bed, thinking "Hey, if a car's tire is pronounced "ty-ehr", then "thy-ehrd" should be written TIRED... And I realized it wasn't a new word after all, it was just that I had always pronounced it "tee-rd" in my head when reading it! :oops:
Strangely enough, nowadays, it's the French words that I have the most trouble with when speaking in English! You have to say it with a certain English accent if you want to be understood and I always mess that up. Grosgrain was a good example of that... Armoire... Boudoir... Maître D'... À la mode... Papier mâché...
I love to watch the decorating and home improvement shows but I cringe when I here them talk about the "foyer" as "foi - er" rather than foi yah as it was origainally said in French.
I think it has been said like that so often now that they added both to the dictionary. :-)
I'm the same way Cindy. Although french is my second language, I speak it very fluently and always try my hardest to pronounce things correctly, but most of the time people don't understand what you're trying to say if you're pronouncing it right. Its really a tough call...do you lose your good accent and be misunderstood on words like papier mache or do you pick up the wrong way just to fit in...its our call I guess
Oh, I have a favorite word and almost everyone says it wrong.
Forte.
Not forte(with accent on e) as in music. That's pronounced ForTAY.
Forte (no accent) as in your strength, something you are good at - is pronounced FORT.
If you can find me someone on TV saying that right, I'll eat my hat.
:lol:
In the UK they are both pronounced for-tay as they are French words. And Brett Favre is pronounced Farv I think because again it is a French word so the "re" are silent. The Louvre art gallery in Paris is pronounced Loov.
The one that makes me laugh because I think it sounds so cute is van Gogh the artist, he is Dutch so over here and in Holland he is called van Goff (to rhyme with cough) whereas in the US I think he is called van Go
