Not sure why, but it really drives me crazy when people say “Say-sawn.”
It’s sɛ.zɔ̃, where s is just like s, ɛ is like the eh sound in “celery” or “men,” z is like z, and ɔ̃ is a nasal vowel that sounds like “own” if you cut off the n on the end.
So it’s kind of like “seh-zohn” with a nasal n on the end.
Duvel is a weird one, because some Dutch-speaking areas pronounce the v as f, and some pronounce v as v. In north Netherlands, especially Amsterdam, v=f is more common, and v=v is maybe a little more common in Belgium, but as far as I can tell, there’s no rhyme or reason to it.
So I think you could say either “Doofle” or “Doovle” and it’d be “correct.” The “el” is pronounced like the le in double.
Now, the β/ʋ/v issue is even crazier. I can’t even hear the difference between them, really, but Dutch people say they can. Also, sometimes w=w, sometimes w=β/ʋ/v
It wasn’t long ago Americans were calling french fries “freedom fries” and boycotting French’s mustard (not me). Maybe some Americans are afraid of sounding French?
Maybe saysawn (John Wayne voice) is just the American version like the Aussies calling Syrah wine “Shiraz”. Kind of gives it a new identity- which it deserves. Surely today’s big saysawns don’t resemble the original, much smaller, nasally versions?
In the south we cannot help but ruin the proper pronunciation of words, especially if they are French. You live south enough to know.
At least you don’t have to hang out in Texas courts. That might be the worst. It is considered poor etiquette to pronounce French correctly in front of a judge:
Voir dire should be pronounced like “vwa dee” but in Texas courts 100% of the time it is pronounced like “vo-ire die errrrrr” and it’s like you get bonus points for finding new syllables to add.
Daubert factors are factors used to determine whether an expert witness is actually an expert. Daubert was a party to the original suit where the factors were described and that is the shorthand reference to the factors. Daubert is pronounced like “daw bear” in civilized parts of the world. In Texas it is “daw bert” (like Robert with a D).
Makes my brain ache enough that I have to drink many say sawns.
Not sure why it’s so bad to mis-pronounce a word from a different language when you don’t speak that language. Even in the US each region has different ways to pronounce certain English words. It doesn’t bother me if someone doesn’t pronounce a word “correctly.”
My family is from Hawaii and although we don’t expect people to pronounce most of those words correctly,it is a litte funny listening to people pronounce Hawaiian words. Of course, when my wife (who is from Iowa) does it I think it’s cute :D One of my uncles, who works in the tourist industry, loves to give directions to tourists and say the street names really fast. They all get a good laugh and he then will write down how to get to their destinations.
When I first lived down on the Gulf Coast, I butchered some of those cajun words, even after being corrected 100 times, I just couldn’t get some of those words right.
I just don’t think I can bring myself to start pronouncing “Saison” with that nasally ending to it. I’ll stick with saying “say-zahn,” which is how people I know here in Denver say it. Now if I ever move to France…
It drives my wife crazy that my Dad would replace bat-trees in the radio and my Mom warshes clothes.
And don’t even get started on the “make the bed” v. “dress the bed” argument. Are they loose-meats, taverns of maid-rites? Do you go uptown or downtown? Soda or pop? And so many more.
I don’t know… to me that’s like news reporters that bust into an accent whenever they pronounce a hispanic name. It’s jarring and sounds pretentious. I kinda split the difference and sort of go “seigh-zawn” or occasionally “seigh-ssawn”. But I’m French Canadian so I kind of get a pass on mangling continental French anyways…
+1! On my father’s side is Hawaiian, Samoan and Filipino. My mother’s side are from North Carolina and “Gawgia.” My wife’s family are all Czech and Irish farmers from NE Iowa. Next time we are all together again, I’m gonna have to record some of those conversations!
That reminds me of Food Network’s Giada De Laurentiis. She speaks with a “normal” American-English dialect then overly pronounces the Italian. This drives my wife crazy, however, I’m not listening to anything that Giada is saying :
