It's OK, just to go ahead and pronounce words like Peugeot as "Piu-jiott", Carrefour as "Carry-four", Citroen as "Sit-tron"… Americans have always pronounced our Orang-utan as "A rang-a-tan" as in when you called a number and someone showed up with a infra-red lamp and proceeded to give your hide a tanning session after which you ended up looking brownish like you'd been on a sunny beach for a few hours...
And why do they pronounce island as i-land and not IS-land? Why is a bouquet not a bow-kuett but a boo-kay? And a buffet not a buffet but boo-fay? You explain, Professor Higgins…
Just as you'd have to know; the rain in Spain no longer stays mainly on the plain… And those dainty ladies upon hearing "move your blooming ass!" no longer faint, but give your bum a squeeze for good measure!
hiak hiak hiak.... funny thoughts of the day.
ReplyDeleteEnglish has bastardised most original pronounciations over time ...
ReplyDeleteTake for eg. Buddha , which is now pronounced world over as Boo- dah.
Just because the english tongue doesn't twist and turn in the ways of the world , they in turn twist the word itself or its pronounciation.
I fear that I'll be laughed at if I pronounce Buddha the way it is pronounced in sanskrit !
the first time i ordered a minestrone (soup), i called it "mine-strone". my date snickered and corrected me and said i wanted "mee-nee-stro-nee". well, that certainly whetted my appetite.
ReplyDeletei actually had to look up piujiott, carryfour and sittron because that is how i pronouce them!! HAW HAW!! honest!! now i know it's purzho, karfoo and sitrowen. now if someone would kindly educate me how to really pronounce Buddha properly..
ReplyDeleteFrancis Light took our Pinang Island and pronounced it as Peneng. Later spelt it as Penang. Our local folks took his 'Go a-stern' and use it as 'gostan'. It's become a local word for 'reverse'.
ReplyDeleteLanguage is a living thing. If it's not a serious tool of communication, it's actually hilarious...