Re: CHAT: F.L.O.E.S.

On Tue, Feb 24, 2004 at 07:38:22PM -0000, And Rosta wrote:
> The reason for the cringe is the respective
> treatments of foreign words in the two dialects; BrE uses short vowels
> where AmE uses long (at least in rendering 'foreign' O and A). I get
> terribly hot under the collar when my cafe companions order a lartay
> ('lAteI -- this, like pizza, coming from America) & insist that
> they repent and order lattay ('l&teI).
Ugh.  Pronouncing "latte" with an [&] makes *my* skin crawl. :) While I
believe in the Americanizing/Anglicizing of foreign borrowings, I do
think the sounds ought to be close to the original where possible(*), and
as the Italian vowel (whether [a] or [A]) is completely unproblematic in
English phonology, I don't know why you would change it to [&].

And did you mean that pizza itself comes from America, or that
British are adopting an American pronunciation of the word "pizza"
(which around here is consistently ['pit:s@])?

(*) At this point someone will no doubt bring up "karaoke" again.  I
don't know why it got borrowed as /kErioki/.  I would not, personally,
have chosen to Anglicize it that way; something more like /k@r&Ukej/ or
at least /k@r&Uki/, maybe.  But I wasn't consulted, and it is at this
point an established English word with that pronunciation, and I see no
reason to waste energy correcting people about it.  Similarly, the
martial art is /k@'ra.di/, despite the many practicioners of said art
who will painstakingly correct you when you pronounce it that way
(e.g. Ross Geller: "It's [ka.ra'te:]!")

-Mark

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