Things that sound wrong when pronounced right.

@Ceili,

Make that "some americans" say Ma tour.. I think my boston irish aunt used to say it that way (she's the one who took elocution lessons..)

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@ossobuco,

I've found that to be an east coast pronunciation, mostly as well...

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@ossobuco,

My apologies, I hear it on tv all the time, I thought it was pretty universal. Elocution lessons, eh! interesting.

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Out in West Texas, Llano is pronounced using the original Spanish (YAW-noh). Here in Austin, it's the Americanized pronunciation (LAN-oh).

The pronunciation of Robert Mueller (our airport was named after him) changed during my time here from MULE-er to MILL-er.

And Bexar County is pronounced BEAR County. The apocryphal story is that the original Mr. Bear was illiterate. He made his mark, X, and someone else wrote his name over it.

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Roberta said:

Quote:

The lower east side (again NYC) has Houston Street--pronounced house-ton. Go figure

Seems to me I vaguely remember back in the 60s sometime, when artists started moving to the cheap rents south of Houston, and they first named the area SoHo, the early settlers first tried to have it pronounced like "SowHow", but the familiarity and influence of London's Soho proved too strong, and it's been "SewHoe" ever since the first few months.

I kinda like the most recent one I know about "Dumbo", which is, I think, "Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass"

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@DrewDad,

DrewDad wrote:

And Bexar County is pronounced BEAR County. The apocryphal story is that the original Mr. Bear was illiterate. He made his mark, X, and someone else wrote his name over it.

I doubt that. The original name of San Antonio was San Antonio de Bexar.

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

OmSigDAVID wrote:

boomerang wrote:
About a year ago they renamed a street by my house Cesar Chavez.

One day I was telling someone where something was and I said:
Turn left on SAY-zar CHAH-vess and everyone looked at me like I was crazy.

It seems that the "proper" way to pronounce the name, according to the locals,
is SEE-sur shuh-VEZ.
boomer, it is sound reasoning to be fonetic. (no pun)
The first syllable of the first name is: "Ce. . .".
That can logically be pronounced with either
a long E (like see) or a short E (like bet).

By no logic (other than the emotion of following the parade, without analysis)
can the first vowel be twisted from an E into an A.
Those 2 vowels have different sounds
and thay shoud not be deemed to duplicate one another.

David

In English long "A" is a dipthong which can be represented by the Latin vowels "EI". A lot of Anglophones tend to pronounce Latin "E" when it occurs at the end of a sylable as the dipthong "EI" which is represented in English orthography as "A".

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Intersting one, set. "Texas" seems to come out "Tay-hahs" in Southwestern Spanish. Would "Bexar" have been (or is now) pronounced "Bay-har", which would easily have been "Bear" to Anglo ears?
Most other Mexican Xs seem to be "sh", but sometimes "S", I think, or even "H" May-hee-co the country, "Xochimilco" "Sew-chee-meel-koh" in Meico City, The Mixtecs who live in La Mixteca in Oaxaca call themselves Mees-tek and live in La Mees-tayk-ah and everyone calls it Wah-hah-ka. (I thought the X was usually just Sh until I started writing this and realized it wasn't).

1 Reply

OmSigDavid said

Quote:

By no logic (other than the emotion of following the parade, without analysis)
can the first vowel be twisted from an E into an A.

You need to brush up on your Spanish pronunciation, David, not to mention your phonetics in general. Because what you consider phonetics, aren't.

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Texas is the former spelling of the Spanish word Tejas (and it means "tiles").

Bexar's original name was San Fernando de Bèxar, and was founded in the XVII by Spanish families (from the Canary Islands). Béxar is the former spelling of the Spanish word Béjar, which also applies -like in many other cities in the Americas- to a town in the Motherland:

Béjar, Spain:

http://www.gronze.com/fotos/plata/bejar.jpg

So Bexar was originally pronounced BEH khar.

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@Ceili,

mature rhymes with all of those things where I come from (northeast) and live (midwest).

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At the time of the Texican revolution (Texican is the name the "Anglos" gave themselves--they were imported by Moses Austin, father of Stephen Austin, at the behest of the Mexican government, Bustamente's government, i believe), the city was called San Antonio de Bexar. So at least is the evidence of the historical documents. I do not doubt that that is the origin of the name for Bexar County. The arch land swindler James Bowie was married to the daughter of the alcalde of San Antonio de Bexar. His wife and several of his in-laws died of disease (tyhphus or tyhoid fever?), and he was himself dying of disease, tended by his sister-in-law, at the time that Santa Anna took the Alamo. Bowie, Travis and Crockett, an unsavory trio, have become the saints of Texas.

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@MontereyJack,

MontereyJack wrote:

OmSigDavid said
Quote:
By no logic (other than the emotion of following the parade, without analysis)
can the first vowel be twisted from an E into an A.

You need to brush up on your Spanish pronunciation, David,

Well, in Spanish, the e in Cesar woud be a short e,
as in: get, bed, or bet.

For SURE, it woud not be an a.
Twisting an e into an a
is strictly an American distortion, from ignorance.

David

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@MontereyJack,

MontereyJack wrote:

Intersting one, set. "Texas" seems to come out "Tay-hahs" in Southwestern Spanish.

That is ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS.
The Spanish never twist an e into an a.

That is an American distortion,
borne of ignorance, and not found in Spanish.

David

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@OmSigDAVID,

Yes, they do, OmSigDavid... No se, is pronounced no say (means I don't know)... also hable (with accent) is ha-blay, mesa is may-sa... there are specific instructions on the pronunciation depending on where the e is in the word, and what follows it.

The x also has several pronunciations: if it occurs before a consonant, it's pronounced as a ks, as in mixto...

if it's between vowels, it can be pronounced ks or gz (examen and exiguo)

it it's at the end of the word, it is an x sound, as in dux, ...

and there are exceptions...

I got this all from the Berlitz English-Spanish dictionary, and my own experience from learning and speaking Spanish and travelling to spanish-speaking countries.

Different countries also have different pronunciations and even spellings, so it's much like English (tire/tyre, privacy/privacy)...

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@OmSigDAVID,

I wasn't sure if MJ was trying to illustrate Spanish pronunciation or Anglicized Spanish pronunication. If it was the former, it's incorrect. I gave him the benefit of the doubt that he's refering to the latter.

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@Mame,

Mame wrote:

Yes, they do, OmSigDavid... No se, is pronounced no say (means I don't know)... also hable (with accent) is ha-blay, mesa is may-sa... there are specific instructions on the pronunciation depending on where the e is in the word, and what follows it.

The x also has several pronunciations: if it occurs before a consonant, it's pronounced as a ks, as in mixto...

if it's between vowels, it can be pronounced ks or gz (examen and exiguo)

it it's at the end of the word, it is an x sound, as in dux, ...

and there are exceptions...

I got this all from the Berlitz English-Spanish dictionary, and my own experience from learning and speaking Spanish and travelling to spanish-speaking countries.

Different countries also have different pronunciations and even spellings, so it's much like English (tire/tyre, privacy/privacy)...

I must deny what u said, Mame,
from what I 've heard from the mouths of native Spanish speakers, e.g., in mesa (table)
there is not the slightest hint of a long A.
The e is precisely and exactly the same
as the short e in bed, get and bet.

"No se" (I don't know) is NOT "say".
It is the same as the aforesaid: get, bet and bed.

David

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@Mame,

Mame wrote:

No se, is pronounced no say (means I don't know)... also hable (with accent) is ha-blay,

The h in Spanish is silent. Hable is pronounced ahblay.

1 Reply

@Roberta,

you're right, of course. I was concentrating on the e to a sound, in which David is wrong. Sad to say. Must be all his crazy fonetics!!

1 Reply

@Setanta,

Thus... the apocryphal story.

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Things that sound wrong when pronounced right.

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