My dear, sweet, funny mother could never remember the word, let alone the pronunciation, for "biscotti." She called them "biscooti," which never failed to make us laugh.

She also once came back from an overnight visit to a cousin's and told us she had slept on a loofah. (She meant a futon.)

My favorite failed attempt at using a foreign (in this case English) word comes from a novel. Do you remember how Sophie referred to her boyfriend's searsucker suit in Sophie's Choice?

<She also once came back from an overnight visit to a cousin's and told us she had slept on a loofah.>
Sleeping on a loofah still beats showering with a falafel - just ask Bill O'Reilly.

Oh, I forgot. One of our favorite evening jaunts was over to the "Cafe En Seine". It truly was insane.

Isn't it interesting how civilized last year's thread was compared to this year's? A year ago, not a single poster opined that the thread was "offensive," "nasty," or that the OP is a "jerk" or "pseudo-intellectual" as they did this month.

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34805475

Notice when the latter started getting so vituperative - and which posters started the insults.

<i>Okay, sociology experiment over. Back in your cages.</i>

Robespierre- why did you start the same thread twice? Was it really an experiment?

I think it is unreasonable to expect monolingual native speakers of one language to correctly pronounce words borrowed from another language. Not only does it require learning an exception to the pronunciation rules of the first language, but it often sounds very odd and requires a sort of gear-switching of the brain that makes a word sound very out of place.

However, if someone presents herself as a fluent speaker of a foreign language, then I expect her to pronounce the words of that language correctly, and if someone claims to be pronouncing something as it is pronounced in its original language, then I expect him to be correct.

French and English are a particularly salient case because the written languages are very similar but the phonetics of the two languages could scarcely be more different. Sometimes words of one language are unrecognizable when <i>correctly</i> pronounced in the other, even to persons who are familiar with both languages (one simply doesn't expect the abrupt change in pronunciation in the middle of a sentence).

I pronounce French and English words correctly when they occur in French and English sentences, respectively, but I pronounce them with a strong accent when they occur in languages of the opposite language, otherwise they can be difficult to understand.

TRSW, the big soap factory in St. Bernard is now (TA DA) the St. Bernard Soap Factory! I remember just a few years ago it belonged to P&amp;G.

I can't believe I didn't know where this place is because I pass through St. Bernard all the time. I love beautiful church up on the hill and St. Bernard, to me, just seems to be caught in time, as in the 1950s.

We Ohioans have several horribly mis-pronounced place names. Probably the worst is Bellefontaine which is pronounced locally as &quot;bell fount'n.&quot; Equally bad is &quot;ver sales&quot; rather than Versailles (which is how its spelled). I&quot;m sure there are others, but these are the ones near where I live.

Melissa

I knew a woman who was trying to impress a group of people, and she was describing the menu for a party she had given, which included &quot;jambone ham.&quot;

-My mother always used to say things cost &quot;boocoo dollars&quot; Only when I took high school french did I realize she meant beaucoup.
-Don't lots of people say boo-kay for bouquet?
-Not sure but isn't the capital of Vermont pronounced Mont-pel-yer? I have colleagues in Montpellier &amp; I love to hear them say the word. Btw, what happened to the extra L in the Vermont version?

THAT's what I'm talkin' about!

Toupary, watch out. The vigilantes will call you a &quot;pompous jerk.&quot;

ooops, I meant boh-kay (I still do)instead of boo-kay

Looks like I'm in good company.

Roby, for one who is usually concerned about accuracy, why the references to &quot;last year&quot; and &quot;last month&quot; when your previous post thread was started on 5/16.

Perhaps posters haven't called you nasty or pompous in this thread because you didn't start this one &quot;giggling&quot; at others.

By the way, chase lounge is now &quot;ubiquitous&quot; when just a week ago it gave you the giggles. Could it be that posters pointed out that when &quot;foreign&quot; words become part of a lexicon, varied pronunications are part of the process.

You mocked a poster just last week for calling a chaise lounge a lounge chair, when in fact it has been in the American English lexicon since the 1800's (AND a lounge chair AND pronounced the way that gives you giggles for over a hundred years.

laclaire, probably because there haven't been enough RER questions lately.

Roby, for one who is usually concerned about accuracy, why the references to &quot;last year&quot; and &quot;last month&quot; when your previous post thread was started on 5/16. <i>This thread was started on 5/21/2005. It is now 2006. That would place the antecedent reference in &quot;last year&quot; - see how that works? I never referred to &quot;last month&quot; at all - in your choleric zeal to nail me, you make stupid little mistakes like that. If you expect to engage me with the vaguest hope of keeping up with me, you will need to get your basic facts straight, as a bare minimum.</i>

Perhaps posters haven't called you nasty or pompous in this thread because you didn't start this one &quot;giggling&quot; at others. <i>I think &quot;Failed attempts&quot; sets the same tone. You may disagree. Your view is a matter of supreme indifference to me.</i>

By the way, chase lounge is now &quot;ubiquitous&quot; when just a week ago it gave you the giggles. <i>I used the term &quot;ubiquitous&quot; a year ago. All that means is that one hears is a lot. I giggled at it then, too.</i>

Could it be that posters pointed out that when &quot;foreign&quot; words become part of a lexicon, varied pronunications are part of the process. <i>Is that a question? If so, it needs to be punctuated correctly. In fact, when most words are assimilated into other languages, the pronunciation is forced into the orthographic model of the receiving language, but <u>the spelling is unchanged</u> In the present case, it was the mispronunciation of French into English words that caused the spelling to fit the English model.</i>

You mocked a poster just last week for calling a chaise lounge <i>[one more time: it's chaise <b>longue</b>]</i> a lounge chair, when in fact it has been in the American English lexicon since the 1800's (AND a lounge chair AND pronounced the way that gives you giggles for over a hundred years. <i No, I mock people who say &quot;chase lounge&quot; - as if a Mr. Chase might have designed it. I mock people who've never studied another language who think they're being suave (swave) and debonair (debonner) by lacing their speech with French terms they can't pronounce. Wa-lah!</i>

Perhaps the best way to answer the question why no one said this week's thread

&gt;&gt;&gt; &quot;was &quot;offensive,&quot; &quot;nasty,&quot; or that the OP is a &quot;jerk&quot; or &quot;pseudo-intellectual&quot; as they did this month.&quot;&lt;&lt;&lt;

would be to reflect back to the way the referenced post from last week opened....

&gt;&gt;&gt; Pet peeve: mispronounced French
Author: Robespierre
Date: 05/15/2006, 02:58 pm
I get a giggle out of Americans who think they're being oh, so urbane when they spout lawnzheray or chase lounge.

I notice many don't seem willing to pronounce the final consonants of armwah or conesyair.

Can you say poseur? &lt;&lt;&lt;

Yep, sounds like poseur to me.

Wow, Robes'! You've really been stewing over this one. And, as starrsville rightly points out, how you say something is as important as what you say. A lesson some extremely educated people need to learn.

As far as biscotti or croissant are concerned, I think it's wrong to suggest that we refer to those as anise biscuits or crescent rolls. Who does that? What Robespierre doesn't like to acknowledge is that words do cross over into English. How outraged we become over the incorrect grammar that ensues is an individual choice and says more about the hearer than the speaker. (Although it is interesting to discuss, I admit.)

Would that everyone was extremely learned in Italian and French as well as English. However IT IS NOT PRETENTIOUS as some would have us think to use these words. It is speaking English. Does everyone realize that most of our words at one time or another entered Anglo-Saxon from other languages? Is it pretentious to say &quot;poignant&quot; or &quot;cathedral&quot; just because these entered English from French or Greek (by way of Latin)? It's the same thing, just more recent.

Question: Why do so many New York very Italian families say &quot;manigutt&quot; instead of &quot;manicotti&quot;? I always assumed this was some sort of Sicilian thing, but would love to know if anyone has insights into this.

We just came to America, and learned English. Or should I say American

Anyway, my then 8-year-old asked me for a slice of antelope. What????? Oh, he meant cantelope!

Faina, you may have heard right the first time if you had moved to Montana.

My mom has been known to tell guests that they are eating &quot;pork&quot; and so they are. But, it happened to be a wild hog from a recent hunting trip.