Shamed

This is how I've been pronouncing it all along, but after having been &quot;corrected&quot; by some friends, have been unable to find the correct pronunciation. <BR><BR>I'm looking for the French pronunciation of the luxury brand, not the American pronunciation of the Greek God.<BR><BR>Assistance would be greatly appreciated - I'm embarrassed, so I'm going incognito on this post!

xxx

As far as I can tell, you're correct.

abc

Hm... I'd say you pronouce the 's'.<BR><BR>Something like air-mes!

pascale

air-mess (you must pronounce the s).

Laurie

IMO it's air mezz' (accent 2nd syllable)

x

I agree with Laurie- I know someone who worked at their corporate office in NYC &amp; that is how they pronounced it.

John G

It is Air-mez, not air-may. I have been shopping at Hermes most of my adult life.

xxx

Laurie is right. In a catalog or some other literature I got from them one time, they included a phonetic pronunciation of their name, and it was basically what Laurie said.

omg

Listen to the queen, he shops all the time in Philadelphia and I am sure that means he knows how to pronounce French brand names!!

Tom

Reminiscent of the Mary-marry-merry discussion, I submit it is more like &quot;err&quot; than &quot;air&quot;.<BR><BR>To use a Noo Yawk phonetic example for the queenly one, it's the syllable in FERRY, not FAIRY.<BR>

bah

insulting another poster doesn't speak well of you.<BR>omg, Tom

xxxx

Both syllables are pronounced equally without emphasizing one or the other -- the French language does NOT accent heavily as we do in English

hmmm

does John Ginthner (Guenthner?) shop in Philly or Atlanta? and with his wife or alone?

x

no, no, Luarie, lose the emphasis. It glides, it aint italian.

John G

Well, darling, there is an Hermes at the King of Prussia Mall, which is a few miles from my beautifully restored Victorian home in Manayunk, PA.

giggle giggle

you have to admit John G. - OMG comment is kinda funny....

Frenchy 101

Which rules are you applying to this pronunciation?

sillyme

lol, always thought it was pronounced 'herm-ies' as in rhymes with 'herpes'.<BR><BR>But then again, I always pronounced 'lingerie' exactly as it sounds too ( ling-er-ee)!<BR><BR>Hope someone as uncouth as me is still welcome here!

Christina

It isn't pronounced air-may because you aren't really spelling it correctly, it has an accent mark over the second syllable which changes the pronunciation, it is Herm&egrave;s<BR><BR>I don't buy that brand and haven't visited them in Paris so don't know how they really pronounce it, but an ending &quot;s&quot; would not usually be pronounced as a &quot;z&quot; in French. Sometimes proper names have their own customs which defy traditional French pronuncation rules, those, so it could be pronounced as a z (I wouldn't necessarily think NYorkers working in their offices would have to be pronouncing it correctly, they may just be pronouncing it the way they think it should be from the Greek). I can't think of any French word ending in &quot;s&quot; that is pronounced as a &quot;z&quot;, and only a few have the &quot;s&quot; actually pronounced at the end, but there are a couple (eg, autobus, fils, helas, mars, bis). None of those have the final &quot;s&quot; pronounced as a &quot;z&quot;, though.<BR><BR>I would probably go with abc/Pascale on the end, but I don't shop there, and I do agree with Tom on the first syllable, also.<BR><BR>I don't have a good enough ear to detect any difference in the way most Americans pronounce &quot;err&quot; vs. &quot;air&quot;, but I agree it isn't really quite a long &quot;a&quot; as in &quot;air&quot; (or really Mary) because there is no accent acute on the first syllable, but is quick speech I don't think anyone notices a big difference in that (I think the first syllable would be pronounced as the first vowel in the word merci). No big accent on the last syllable, but maybe a teensy stress if one wants.<BR><BR>There are some French composers who pronounce their family name differently than you would expect, so I've seen that before (eg, Pierre Boulez, and even Poulenc which I heard from his niece).

Bill

The difference between err and air is substantial, almost as big as the difference between bed and bad. Or the word pair ferry/fairy does indeed point it out quite well. The &quot;eh&quot; in ferry is very similar to the eh in fed. It is not all like fair, which is a cousin to the short a in fan.<BR><BR>And it sure seems like the first syllable in Herm&egrave;s would be like ferry, like m&egrave;re or terre.<BR><BR>There is a French word &quot;aire&quot;, meaning area. You see it all the time on the autoroutes. I am not confident enough in my French to know does it too, rhyme exactly with m&egrave;re or terre? or is it different in some way?<BR>