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Pronunciation of culinary/food-related terms: Why do it wrong?

Kim Shook

By Kim Shook
in Food Traditions & Culture

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heidih

heidih

Posted
Posted
On 2/21/2014 at 10:54 PM, liuzhou said:

So how do you pronounce 'paprika'? I've heard at least two, both listed in the OED. ((ˈpæprɪkə, pəˈpriːkə) )

By the way, serious question for the 'erb sayers. Do you also say 'erbal' for 'herbal'?

No judgement. I really just wonder and there are no passing Americans here right now.

 

I grew up saying pop-rik-uh. I got confused when people said puh-pree-akuh

 

No h pronounced in herb or herbal.  Famous nationalbrand shampoo here in US - Herbal Essence - no h sound. Checked u-tube commercials - def no H. I do not recall the orgasm commercial from '98b with Dr. Ruth - amusing.

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Martin Fisher

Martin Fisher

Posted
Posted
5 hours ago, lindag said:

Don't you just love to hear people grapple with 'Worcestershire'?

My Dad calls it What's-This-Here sauce. :laugh:

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~Martin :)

I just don't want to look back and think "I could have eaten that."

Unsupervised, rebellious, radical agrarian experimenter, minimalist penny-pincher, and adventurous cook. Crotchety, cantankerous, terse curmudgeon, non-conformist, and contrarian who questions everything!

The best thing about a vegetable garden is all the meat you can hunt and trap out of it!

 

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Smithy

Smithy

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, gfweb said:

More usage than pronunciation but  Tang is a taste...twang is a sound. Damnit.

 

Some might disagree. 😉

 

20230217_155821.jpg

 

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Nancy Smith, aka "Smithy"
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"There comes a time in every project when you have to shoot the engineer and start production." -- author unknown

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liuzhou

liuzhou

Posted
Posted
5 hours ago, gfweb said:

More usage than pronunciation but  Tang is a taste...twang is a sound. Damnit.

 

Quote

twang, n.2

 

1.1 A penetrating or persisting taste, flavour, or odour, usually disagreeable: = tang n.1 5.

 

OED

 

...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

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Alex

Alex

Posted
Posted
20 hours ago, heidih said:

No h pronounced in herb or herbal. 

 

Yes, it is, by many humans, just not all that much in the US.

"There is no sincerer love than the love of food."  -George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, Act 1

 

"Imagine all the food you have eaten in your life and consider that you are simply some of that food, rearranged."  -Max Tegmark, physicist

 

Gene Weingarten, writing in the Washington Post about online news stories and the accompanying readers' comments: "I basically like 'comments,' though they can seem a little jarring: spit-flecked rants that are appended to a product that at least tries for a measure of objectivity and dignity. It's as though when you order a sirloin steak, it comes with a side of maggots."

 

"...in the mid-’90s when the internet was coming...there was a tendency to assume that when all the world’s knowledge comes online, everyone will flock to it. It turns out that if you give everyone access to the Library of Congress, what they do is watch videos on TikTok."  -Neil Stephenson, author, in The Atlantic

 

"In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual." -Galileo Galilei, physicist and astronomer

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liuzhou

liuzhou

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Kim Shook said:

The "L" in salmon bugs me, too.  As does a friend's pronunciation of "almond" - she says the "al" as in the man's name "Al' and then "mond".  

 

I heard someone pronounce almond as you describe, just today. I was going to post about it but you beat me. How common is it? I've heard it in England, too.

...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

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heidih

heidih

Posted
Posted
46 minutes ago, liuzhou said:

 

I heard someone pronounce almond as you describe, just today. I was going to post about it but you beat me. How common is it? I've heard it in England, too.

I only hear ah-mund except occasionally by non native English speakers. Oh and once in a while in a movie or show mockingy scripted for a hick and I;'e heard my Ausie nephew do the "al" thiong. 

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haresfur

haresfur

Posted
Posted (edited)
8 hours ago, Kim Shook said:

The "L" in salmon bugs me, too.  As does a friend's pronunciation of "almond" - she says the "al" as in the man's name "Al' and then "mond".  

 

I was at a wedding in California where the bride's uncle told me he was an Amon farmer, then translated, "You would say almond." I told him, "You grow them, you get to decide how to say it."

 

eta: If I remember correctly, he used a hard A

Edited by haresfur (log)
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It's almost never bad to feed someone.

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heidih

heidih

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, haresfur said:

 

I was at a wedding in California where the bride's uncle told me he was an Amon farmer, then translated, "You would say almond." I told him, "You grow them, you get to decide how to say it."

 

eta: If I remember correctly, he used a hard A

Hard farming - hard A - yes makes sense.

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liuzhou

liuzhou

Posted
Posted
13 hours ago, haresfur said:

If I remember correctly, he used a hard A

 

I'm sorry but can you explain what a 'hard A' is? It is not a standard linguistic term. Only consonants are separated into 'soft'and 'hard' - eg. gauge, the first /g/ being hard and the second soft. I have never heard of a 'hard' vowel. The main categories of vowels are 'long' and 'short'.

 

I'm not saying you are wrong, but it is not the scientific term.

https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/15028/am-i-using-the-right-terms-in-referring-to-soft-and-hard-vowels-and-consonan

...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

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Smithy

Smithy

Posted
Posted

Pee CON, or Pih CON if I'm in a hurry.

Nancy Smith, aka "Smithy"
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"Every day should be filled with something delicious, because life is too short not to spoil yourself. " -- Ling (with permission)
"There comes a time in every project when you have to shoot the engineer and start production." -- author unknown

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liuzhou

liuzhou

Posted
Posted (edited)
39 minutes ago, kayb said:

So how do y’all weigh in on pecan? 

 

The OED gives three pronunciations pɪˈkæn, ˈpiːkæn, pɪˈkɑːn with the ' before the stressed syallable. I use the first, but many of my friends use the second and more American friends tend to use the third. Never heard /pi ˈkɑn/ (pee CON).

Edited by liuzhou (log)

...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

The Kitchen Scale Manifesto

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Duvel

Duvel

Posted
Posted
2 minutes ago, liuzhou said:

 

The OED gives three pronunciations pɪˈkæn, ˈpiːkæn, pɪˈkɑːn with the ' before the stressed syallable. I use the first, but many of my friends use the second and moreAmerican friends tend to use the third. Never heard /pi ˈkɑn/ (pee CON).


Irrelevant. It’s pronounced …

 

Peeeeee -

 

167686-1024__06428.1607796150.jpg?c=2?im

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Smithy

Smithy

Posted
Posted
5 minutes ago, liuzhou said:

Never heard /pi ˈkɑn/ (pee CON).

 

For clarity's sake, I probably should have written that as pee CAHN.

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Nancy Smith, aka "Smithy"
Host, eG Forums - nsmith@egstaff.org

Follow us on social media! Facebook; instagram.com/egulletx; twitter.com/egullet

"Every day should be filled with something delicious, because life is too short not to spoil yourself. " -- Ling (with permission)
"There comes a time in every project when you have to shoot the engineer and start production." -- author unknown

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