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Failed attempts at using foreign words
Do you have any like these (collected in Phoenix):
<b>Joan de Arc Street Pier de Orleans ...with au jus</b> (And never mind the 'chase lounge' and the 'lawnzheray' which seem ubiquitous.) |
This thread is so passay :)
Jim |
Threads like this are my raisin d'etre. Merely an antipasta before the entre. |
good for you, 'with au jus' always makes me smile as well.
Prix fixe, the latter pronounced 'fix-ay' |
You reminded me of another two (related):
<b>cache cachet</b> The first is almost <u>always</u> heard pronounced as the latter. Oh, and <b>walla</b> of course! |
Please RSVP, or please respond with your RSVP.
Pizza pie These examples are déjà vu all over again. |
Not a foreign word but there are several streets in Cincinnati spelled Navaho rather than Navajo. So veddy annoying.
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Beatchick,
What part of Cincy are you from? I was born in Elmwood Place way back when!! |
Pie à la mode...
(for a good laugh, try ordering this one in any french bistrot) -Kevin |
Hey TRSW! I actually live outside of Cincinnati now having moved mid-March. I am still living out of boxes!! :D And I've only lived in this area for 10 years. I've lived in Madeira & West Chester (which is not really part of Cincinnat proper either). I work in Clifton near all the hospitals.
Lord, I have no idea where Elmwood Place is? I'll have to look it up? Is it east side, west side? When did you move, if you don't mind my asking? And where do you live now, again, if you don't mind my asking? I've often wondered how many Cincinnatians frequent this board. One of my closest friends, who'd been lurking on here forever, finally just started posting here. She's very cool. |
Kevin, that's hilarious, btw! :)
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When I was in Paris shortly after graduation from college( years ago), I went to get a haircut. I asked in my college French to have a little cut off my hair. I expected to just have a trim. Instead I received a very short haircut so that instead of a little hair cut off, I now had just a little hair!
Actually I was very pleased with my new unexpected haircut, although I would not have had the nerve to have planned to get it cut that way. |
This memory always makes me smile:
seen in Amsterdam--the product was aged goat cheese, translated as cheese from an old goat. Anne |
Fortunately the name has now changed, but in L.A. there was a hotel restaurant called "The Chez".
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'bru-shetta'
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Beatchick,
Elmwood place is right next to St Bernard, where the big P&G plant is (or was)located. Was born there back in 1962, then dad joined the Navy and I grew up all over the country, mainly up and down the coast of California. Presently I am living in Seattle. I have been here now for 12 years. It is a great city. Idid move back to Cincy a couple of times after high school. Lived in Price Hill, Mt Washington areas. Tom |
Personally, I don't see a problem with "Navajo" or "Navaho" since both are transliterations from a non-written language. Same goes for any language having graphemes or ideographs such as Russian or Chinese transliterated into...anything that doesn't. The best one can hope for is to render a phonetic approximation in the target language.
<b>provolone</b> (rhymes with "Capone") |
Robespierre,
I don't disagree with the comment on the correct pronunciation of provolone, but I'll add that there seem to be some Italian dialects or colloquialisms that drop final vowels. I have heard Italians (well, Italian-Americans anyway, maybe that's the disclaimer) say provoloan (no final e sound) mozzarell' manicott' etc Maybe it's like speaking in English and dropping final g's comin' goin' |
The old goat cheese reminds me of being in Vienna and we ordered an appetizer that was made with knuckles from a baby pig - at least that is what the translation on the menu read. What we got was all meat, so baby pigs must not have bones or cartelidge (sp) in their knuckles.
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If we're now talking about common mistakes, the ones I most love to hate are: "one cannoli, two cannolis" and "one biscotti, two biscottis" and "one panini, two paninis." I think it's slightly pretentious to talk about "biscotti" rather than "biscuits" or "panini" rather than "sandwiches" in the an English-speaking country. But if people want to be a tiny bit snobbish or cute or just make their food sound more authentically Italian and use foreign words when English ones would be perfectly understandable, it would be nice if they'd at least know the difference between the singular and the plural of the thing they're buying or eating or preparing. I could see perhaps Americanizing the plural of "biscotto" and making it "biscottos," for example, which would sound funny to me, but I could get used to it and accept it as an AMERICAN word, just like "pizzas" (rather than the Italian "pizze") as the common plural of "pizza" in American English. But it just sounds really bizarre to use the PLURAL word as a singular, and then to add an S to the already PLURAL word to make what I guess is meant to be the plural. What makes the mistake worse is that the use of the foreign word is often a bit pretentious and usually unnecessary in the first place, so "one biscotti, two biscottis" sounds like a charmless combination of both snobbish and illiterate. But if people really feel they must use the Italian words for these foods, they should ask for "one biscotto, two biscotti," etc.
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Go to Starbuck's and order two cappucinos. Nobody uses the correct plural.
And the comment from Elaine about dropping letters from the end of words reminds me of what a waiter once said in Italy when I asked about antipasto. He said he only had "supesh." It took me a few seconds to realize he was talking about fish soup. |
Chow! See ya tomorra.
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For old-style South Philadelphians (mostly Italians, in the mold of late mayor Frank Rizzo), the only correct way to pronounce provolone is
proovaloon. Esp. when ordering a late night cheese steak at Pat's or Geno's. Assuming of course, they hadn't ordered the more common "steak with", meaning Cheez Whiz. (Whiz dripped too easily on a Krass Brothers suit.) |
Wayne: I think maybe you're not quite following my explanation (a.k.a. rant). Saying "cappuccinos" (instead of "cappuccini") is like saying "pizzas" instead of "pizze." It's not the correct Italian plural, but in the US (and maybe in Canada and the UK and Australia), if pizza and cappuccino have become everyday English words, then adding an "s" to make the plural is normal in English and it doesn't really bother me.
But that's absolutely totally different from saying "a dozen cannolis" or "two paninis." "Cannolo" and "panino" are singular words, and "cannoli" and "panini" are their plural (in Italian), so using the ITALIAN PLURAL word as a SINGULAR and then ADDING AN "S" to it when you mean plural is just plain weird. |
"Walla" always gets me, too. If you can't pronounce it, don't use the word, especially if you don't have to.
elaine, I have had waiters in snotty US restaurants tell me it was "brew-shetta." I just raise my eyebrows and smile. |
What's "Walla"?
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Voila.
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There's a town in western PA named Versailles. Guess how it's pronounced - yup, VERSALES.
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I don't mind the 'two cannolis' or "three biscotti" thing, because unless you know Italian, you're not likely to know that cannolli or biscotti are already plurals.
I'm more apt to inwardly smirk when, in an effort that comes across as pretentious to me, a restaurant server or menu will refer to 'brushetta' or Robespierre's 'with au jus'. That's not a matter of singular or plural, that's mangling a foreign word just because they haven't learned how to pronounce it or use it. Otherwise, 'with natural gravy' would work just fine. By the way, people in my parents' generation (maybe currently as well) use to say Gon DOLE lah. |
I do not know what walla is either, but I maybe I will find out Tuesday??
But cmt, I certainly understand what you are trying to convey. |
see my one-word posting above. Voila!!
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Oh elaine, missed your first post, LOL. Got it!!!!! Grazie!
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Vienna, Ohio is pronounced VY (rhymes with why) - anna Westminster, Colorado is pronounced "Westminister". Crazy. |
Elaine, if they don't even know that biscotti is already plural, they should "talk American" and and refer to them as biscuits. I think "three biscottis" is every bit as snobbish and stupid sounding "with au jus," since they could so easily just talk about meat with its own juice and some anise biscuits after dinner.
"Walla" is voilà? That's funny. Reminds me of a used clothing shop in downtown Trenton that used to be called "De-Ja Vous." |
An English speaker adding an "s" to pluralize a noun of another language is <i>snobbish</i>?
How's that? Sounds more like a matter of familiarity than snobbery. |
I had a young waitress once tell me the soup de jour was gestapo (gazpacho).
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By the way, though pronouncing bruschetta incorrectly is incorrect, I just can't get too worked up about it. It's just a mispronunciation. Not everyone has studied Italian or has reason to know the relationship between Italian spelling and pronunciation, and really they have no reason to if they're not attempting to learn Italian. But mangling words by using the plural as a singular and adding an s to the plural is SO much worse in my view, ESPECIALLY when this is done on menus and in restaurant reviews, i.e. by people who making a living selling or talking about these foods, and who are trying to be fancy using a foreign word, but don't have enough interest or respect to learn what the word really is.
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I guess we're saying the same thing, I don't expect the average person to necessarily know how to use the plurals or pronounce bruschetta, but if a restaurant is going to have these things on the menu listed that way, I think they ought to say it or use it properly, or else just call it 'gravy' or 'anise biscuits.'
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Hi cmt, my Rome born and raised son-in-law agrees with you completely. He does not expect Americans to know the plural of words etc. He does not expect them to know how to pronounce Italian words correctly. But he does shake his head when restaurants take the liberties they do. He has made so many funny comments about items on menus.
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Yes, Elaine, we agree. People who make a profit out of selling or writing about these things should get it right. But I don't have such high standards for waiters who are not making a career out of being waiters and are just pronouncing menu items the say they've heard them. I also don't think mispronouncing a word is nearly as outrageous as totally misusing a word or mangling the singular-plural.
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