American pronunciation of names

[Stumpy Pepys]

American pronunciation of names

Diable Rouge wrote: What other way is there of pronouncing it, apart from "Neslay"?

"Nessel". Like the pronunciation of "pestle".

[Fussbudget]

American pronunciation of names

Janik wrote: But then there is always this. I'm with Feynman. If your message is getting across then however you are choosing to pronounce something is good enough.

I know that's not the point of the anecdote, but how would a thick French accent turn Montreal into "Moon-TRAY-ALGH"? The T is silent in French, for a start.

[ursus arctos]

American pronunciation of names

Nobel laureate humour is an acquired taste.

I'm actually not sure how one would pronounce any of those syllables in a thick French accent.

[Fussbudget]

American pronunciation of names

Moune-treille-algue is my best guess.

[ursus arctos]

American pronunciation of names

Moune-treille-algue is my best guess.

très bien fait

[tee rex]

American pronunciation of names

Spirograph. Spiro Agnew.

A small child c 1970 makes the exciting discovery that Americans are different (i.e. wrong).

[My Name Is Ian]

American pronunciation of names

Janik wrote:

This idea that the British pronounciation of names, especially non-English ones, is obviously the correct one is funny. Have you all morphed into Nigel Farrage when I wasn't looking?

You stole the words out of my mouth. Trying to pull the old "you stupid colonials can't speak properly" in a conversation on fucking Japanese pronunciation of all things shows roof-breaking levels of insularity and cultural arrogance. I suppose living in Tory-dominated villages does get to you in the end.

Incidentally, to my knowledge it's the Americans who are closer to getting it right.

When has anybody tried to claim that "the British pronounciation of names, especially non-English ones, is obviously the correct one" or "pull the old "you stupid colonials can't speak properly" in a conversation on fucking Japanese pronunciation of all things" on this thread? Because I'm not seeing it. Presumably my UKIP rosette is getting in the way.

You've missed the part early in the thread where the American pronunciation of Nissan and Mazda was described as 'odd', then? Not 'different from over here', but 'odd', as if the choice they make is somehow wrong?

In all honesty, Janik, that's a gross over- exaggeration, and more than a little out of order. As AB called it below, no-one, so far as I can see, was inferring any cultural superiority over anybody else, and to suggest otherwise is little more than bullshit.

[My Name Is Ian]

American pronunciation of names

But, you know, I've better things to be doing than getting in arguments on the internet, so it's over and out for me on this thread.

[Janik]

American pronunciation of names

Arguments on the Internet have the real issue that tone doesn't come across. Gentle ribbing (general of OTF rather than anyone in particular) was what I was going for, and have clearly missed the mark.
Trying to justify a misfiring jokey post is clearly also an error.
So, sorry.

Ok?

[ursus arctos]

American pronunciation of names

Spirograph. Spiro Agnew.

A small child c 1970 makes the exciting discovery that Americans are different (i.e. wrong).

Different words. The vice president's first name was Greek and pronounced as such. We pronounce the game/design tool's name as did you.

[ursus arctos]

American pronunciation of names

I'm genuinely fascinated by the fact that lots of your (with strong evidence) "read" Uncle Ben as owning the rice company. That reading was never available to us, but I genuinely wonder if it was what the marketing types who exported the brand to Europe as counting on.

I've always sort of assumed that "you" were fully aware of just how fundamentally racist US culture was (and arguably still is), but my faith in that reading has been shaken by this thread.

[Amor de Cosmos]

American pronunciation of names

"arguably?"

I think there's an argument that US culture — as opposed to US society — wasn't perceived as racist to us. Black American musicians, entertainers, sports figures were accepted in the same way as white Americans, in the UK of the 60s for example. Advertising, was part of that same culture, so far as I was concerned anyway. I knew about civil rights marches, sit-ins, and so on but they happened on the news, not on store shelves. The cultural connection, of Uncle Ben for instance, to the everyday life of the average US citizen, black or white, was obscure.

[Jah Womble]

American pronunciation of names

You've missed the part early in the thread where the American pronunciation of Nissan and Mazda was described as 'odd', then? Not 'different from over here', but 'odd', as if the choice they make is somehow wrong?

Janik - as the poster who started it, I suggested that it was 'odd', in the sense that it was 'at odds' with how the girl in question pronounced other words. This doesn't mean 'wrong' as such. Just 'odd'.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

American pronunciation of names

In most of the examples so far, the pattern has been elongated vowels (US) v flat vowels (UK) - which makes Graham (as in the crackers) even more baffling to our sensitive Brit ears.

[ursus arctos]

American pronunciation of names

Black American musicians, entertainers, sports figures were accepted in the same way as white Americans, in the UK of the 60s for example.

For me, this just goes to show how successful white commercial interests were in masking the reality of the situation.

During this period, we had dozens of our greatest jazz musicians living in exile because of racism, no regular black characters on television (before Bill Cosby in ISpy) and a sports landscape marked by the greatest boxer of all time being stripped of the title and deprived of his livelihood, while entire leagues in baseball and basketball continued to impose informal quotas on the number of black players on any one team (while public universities in the South continued to field all white teams).

But one was only aware of that if one a) had access to all of the information (which was much less accessible than it is now) and b) were paying attention (which few of my countrymen were.

As to "arguably", while readily admitting that there are still many miles to go, I believe it incontrovertible that things have gotten better since then.

[Geoffrey de Ste. Croix]

American pronunciation of names

The University of North Georgia's catalogue presents the perfect metaphor for contemporary America.

[Vulgarian Visigoth]

American pronunciation of names

Anyway, let this girl be the judge.

[Ginger Yellow]

American pronunciation of names

One victim of the switch was the Milky Bar Kid, gawky star of a very long-running ad campaign with a jingle ending (unaccented) "... Nestles' Milky Bar". It just didn't work with the fancy accent.

Huh. I only ever remember hearing it with the accent, as in this ad. But Youtube has some from earlier with the pestle pronunctiation.