Why We're Not Talkin'

[Steve R.]

Yeah, I ordered claret & the idiot som. repeated it back, pronouncing the t.  What has that profession come to?

[Wilfrid]

Ha, we have all been there.

And then of course there’s Rioja. 😱

[Evelyn]

Add meritage to the list. I dated a winery owner/winemaker who was one of the group the coined the term. It drove him nuts when he would do wine dinners around the country and he heard it mispronounced. I cannot tell you how many times he lectured somms and "wine pourers".

[Sneakeater]

I guess "turbot" is one of the prime offenders.

[small h]

3 hours ago, Sneakeater said:

You won't believe this, but I was once corrected on "Merlot".

Mullet?

[Sneakeater]

No, the waiter's hair was more a buzz cut.

[Anthony Bonner]

I actually do the opposite thing. I don't roll out the full proper French pronunciation of things in an English conversation because I don't want to sound pretentious. I sort of half ass it.  And then invariably someone corrects me. 

Which led to a particularly entertaining event at a wine tasting where a person showed me a map of France and said "this is France - yes?"

[Sneakeater]

I don't try to put on a full accent or anything (I have a friend who, when you're talking about Moliere, switches to a full French accent in the middle of an English sentence to say "Tartuffe", and the affectation of it drives me up the wall).  But I don't pronounce "confit" as "kahn-fitt" either.

[small h]

 

 

[voyager]

My French always sounds brilliant in my mind but somehow goes through a food processor on its way out of my mouth.    Best I keep it simple.   

[Orik]

20 hours ago, Sneakeater said:

I don't try to put on a full accent or anything (I have a friend who, when you're talking about Moliere, switches to a full French accent in the middle of an English sentence to say "Tartuffe", and the affectation of it drives me up the wall).  But I don't pronounce "confit" as "kahn-fitt" either.

My approach too. In any event I don't think it's reasonable to expect a random person to know how to pronounce random foreign food words (especially when an entire kingdom thinks there's a car in Rioja!), but it is reasonable that if you want to sell very expensive French bottles then your waiters should know how to pronounce the few such words on the menu (and your kitchen should know how to cook them). 

[Behemoth]

I refuse to pronounce German words correctly when speaking English.  Someone (American) once corrected my pronunciation of Hamburg “it’s HOM-bourg” and I’m like, we’ll actually it’s Hambourchhh und du kannst mich mal Alter. 

[Sneakeater]

I wonder if French people sitting in a café in Paris discussing movies switch to an American accent when saying something like, "ma comédie musicale préférée est Singing in the Rain."

[voyager]

As long as I can understand, I let it slide.     Would that others do the same for me.

[Wilfrid]

On 9/10/2022 at 10:13 AM, Sneakeater said:

I don't try to put on a full accent or anything (I have a friend who, when you're talking about Moliere, switches to a full French accent in the middle of an English sentence to say "Tartuffe", and the affectation of it drives me up the wall).  But I don't pronounce "confit" as "kahn-fitt" either.

It’s not necessarily an affectation. I sometimes hear myself putting a lot more accent into a word or phrase than I intended. But if it’s Spanish that’s how I’d say it to my Spanish-speaking family; if it’s French that’s how I’d say it if I was reading to myself; and now I have a close friend learning German and texting me in German so I’m dusting off my Deutsch.

And I can absolutely imagine someone thinking I’m an arse for rolling my “r”s, but I am not trying to impress. Not usually anyway.