Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Overheard in the Hallway:

Me: "Boomslang! Boomslang!"

RX: "Actually, it's pronounced 'boomslahng'."

Me: "Yes, but that's not as fun to say. Plus, it's pronounced 'Nee-ha-RAH-ghwa', but we say 'Nicaragua'. And it's pronounced 'Deutschland', and we say 'Germany'."

RX: "...and it's pronounced 'Fran-swah' but we say..."

Me: "Frank-case!"

RX: "We do not say Frank-case."


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*Firefox's spell-checker doesn't know 'Deutschland'. "Did you mean 'Sudetenland'?" it offers as a possible alternative just dripping with historical irony.

13 comments:

  1. I prefer Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson's pronunciation of France: "The Land of the Cheese-Eating Monkeys" myself.

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  2. So what are you trying to say here?

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  3. So, you're cheering about venomous snake or a Metal band?

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  4. Neither. It's just fun to say "boomslang".

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  5. ahem...'Fran co eese!'
    it's swave and de-boner to say
    vee oh la, too!

    (as long as we're on this tack)

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  6. "Firefox's spell-checker doesn't know 'Deutschland'. "Did you mean 'Sudetenland'?" it offers as a possible alternative just dripping with historical irony."

    It really did that?
    wow, just wow.


    "RX: "...and it's pronounced 'Fran-swah' but we say..."

    Me: "Frank-case!"

    Ok, it's probably me (the euro immigrant) but I just don't see how you got from A to B here, nor why Frank-case is somehow bad.

    Terry

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  7. Time to turn it up to 11. Reflect on the fact that "Slang" is merely the Dutch word for "snake". Step across the border to Germany, and you've got "Schlange". Imagine Bruce Campbell waving a giant dildo over his head shouting "This is my BOOMSHLONG!", and you're where I was about five minutes ago.

    You're welcome.

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  8. Ancient Woodsman7:09 PM, August 31, 2011

    I loved the British pronunciation of, "neek-a-RAG-you-ah"...having been there in '86 and all over their news, while they also talked about how our President Ronald Rye-gun was celebrating the 100th aniversary of the Statue of Liber-tay.

    Meanwhile, I'm known around work for calling folks "mon-sewer" as a deliberate skewering of monsieur; one of those 'guess you had to be there' bits when a good part of our 'customer' base speaks en Francais.

    If someone berates me for how I say something, it not only reveals that they actually understood what I was trying to say (kind of the point of communication in the first place) but also that they are an anal little prick for being so...well, anal.

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  9. The Galapagos, e.g. have the accent on the penult, on that long _English_ "a". Lately I read that the locals have renamed the islands which had perfectly good English names, with some kind of Wog or Don or Dago names.

    Remember, Men! Wogs begin at Calais!

    (pronounced, "Callis.")

    WV: cones. The one on my head, you'll never get!

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  10. Puerto Ricans call New York "Nueva Jork." How come New Yorkers don't call Puerto Rico "Richport?"

    gvi

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  11. On the other hand, Tchoupitoulas Street is pronounced the way it's spelled, unlike Burgundy or Calliope.

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  12. "RX: "We do not say Frank-case.""
    We do now!

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