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To: Sherman Logan

I say be like the British, they obstinately refuse to pronounce a foreign loan word in any manner other than the obvious way to do so in English. Claret and valet are CLAR-ett and VAL-ett.


42 posted on 06/10/2014 6:50:49 AM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: RegulatorCountry

I take a somewhat more nuanced approach.

Foreign words should be pronounced as closely as possible to the way they’re pronounced in the foreign language.

But at some point, as it is used more and more frequently, a word stops being foreign and becomes an English word. At that point it should be pronounced as an English word, which it now is.

Used to hang out in southern MO. Little town there named after Simon de Bolivar, the Liberator of South America.

It’s pronounced Bolliver, which is perfectly logical in English. To my mind, insisting on pronouncing it BO-lee-var is precious and patronizing.

Also used to live in CO on Florida Road, pronounced FLO-ree-da. Now I live in the state of Florida, pronounced in the more usual American way.

The pretentious twits are also utterly inconsistent. They’ll talk about Torino and Milano, but not Roma. And they’ll never use Munchen.


46 posted on 06/10/2014 7:00:06 AM PDT by Sherman Logan
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