How do you say "Otto"

[mogsob]

The "o"s in otto are pronounced as very short "oh"s. Sort of like the sound you make if kicked in the nuts.

I also believe that Babbo is pronounced: "Overrated restaurant run by extremely smug people." But then again, I could be wrong.

[GordonCooks]

A much more interesting topic would be

How do you say "Manicotti or Capicola"

[tommy]

mario says "bah-bo". that's what i'm sticking with. to do otherwise might sound pretentious.

[Ron Johnson]

Sort of like the sound you make if kicked in the nuts. 

Thanks Mamster,

One doesn't have to grow up in Italy to know what that sounds like.

[Wilfrid]

Let's not get onto Ouest and Aix. Please.

[La Niña]

Just read a thread on CH about this. Somebody said:

"more like "haute"-oh. haute as in haute cuisine, said in a very french way."

Good one. Except the second vowel isn't really a long o like English.

[Wilfrid]

Of course, Americans - the exemplary exception being La Nina - pronounce 'haute' wrong too.

[Ron Johnson]

Of course, Americans - the exemplary exception being La Nina - pronounce 'haute' wrong too. 

Will getting kicked in the nads help pronounce that one also?

[Wilfrid]

I think coughing would. Maybe with a helpful physician squeezing the area in question.

[tommy]

I think coughing would.  Maybe with a helpful physician squeezing the area in question.

perhaps member input would help.

[Wilfrid]

Careful, I already got banned today.

[Ron Johnson]

I think coughing would.  Maybe with a helpful physician squeezing the area in question.

perhaps member input would help.

You could always pm experts, you know?

[Orik]

Nina is right, as inidicated in the mp3. You just can't say it using American vowels, while some British accents support it nicely. Please watch the following episode of 'Standard Deviants' if and when it is aired and practice your Otto, Vito and risotto

http://www.standarddeviants.com/pls/brain/...p_subject_id=16

[La Niña]

Orik motek, amarti lecha sh'ani metta alecha?

[Fat Guy]

You just can't say it using American vowels

Which brings me back to my two questions above: 1) If the owner of the establisment says it's "oh-toe" with full American long-"o"s, is that not the official pronunciation and should we not all accept it? 2) If there is no American sound should we not Americanize/Anglicize it to a sound we do have in our language?

[Ron Johnson]

1) If the owner of the establisment says it's "oh-toe" with full American long-"o"s, is that not the official pronunciation and should we not all accept it?

Yes, and yes. Plus, its correct.

[Wilfrid]

No. And even youse guys don't do that for lots of French words. You just seem to like doing it to poor old Italian words.

[La Niña]

Ron - perhaps you can't hear the difference between oh-toe, and what's on that MP3? Does it sound like oh-toe to you?

Well, what does "accept" mean? Okay so the owner's Italian sucks. Doesn't mean I have to pronounce it incorrectly. Americans (like everybody else) do the best they can. Some people can pronounce foreign words well, some people can't. Just because the owner can't - so what. I have called Chanterelle to make a reservation and I have had the phone answered "Chanterelle" with a totally American "r" - does that mean I have to say it that way?

Why do we have to say petit-fours instead of little pastries? Why are we so enamored of using foreign appellations which we can't pronounce for things for which we have perfectly good English names? And we Americans are not alone in this. It's particularly prevalent in food and decor. We have an English word for "otto" - the word is "eight." A restaurant opened in New Haven some time ago and it was called Bruxelles. Many people called it Bruck-sel or Bruck-selle. Why not just call it Brussels? That's the English word. I'd rather hear "cheese melt" than fahn-doo any day.

So for marketing purposes, these restaurant people feel it's more desirable to be called the foreign word. In France, they're all going nuts because of the invasion of English words - le weekend, etc. C'est la vie, c'est le monde.

[Fat Guy]

The assumption that Joe Bastianich's Italian sucks seems a questionable one. The more likely set of facts is that he has good comprehension of Italian vowel sounds but chose an American pronunciation. In that instance, there's a compelling argument -- I think -- that he and Mario Batali are the arbiters of the official pronunciation of the name of the restaurant that they own. To pronounce it another way, under those circumstances, would be to call the restaurant something it isn't.

[Ron Johnson]

Ron - perhaps you can't hear the difference between oh-toe, and what's on that MP3?  Does it sound like oh-toe to you?

Perhaps. Or, perhaps you are hearing it incorrectly.

I think Batali called the place Otto and not Eight because the cuisine is Italian and not American or English. Just a thought.

[Stone]

Okay, here we go.  Once again, I have spoken to 2 Italian friends of mine.

The syllables in Otto do not rhyme with the o in the American top or hot and not with the o in toe or no or oh, - it's a softer, shorter o, and we don't have it in English. The two syllables also do not rhyme exactly with each other - the second syllable has a slightly longer vowel. The the two t's are not pronounced like a d, or like a hard t. It's a soft t - again, we don't have it in English.

It's impossible to write anything like well the o sounds like x or y, because these vowel sounds *do not exist* in English.  The closest thing I can come up with for the first o is something like the vowel in caught or paw, but even that's not it.   And Macrosan is right - the o in the Brit pronunciation of top or hot is close.  The second o is a bit longer than that, but still not like our long o in English.

In other words, don't even think about trying to pronounce it correctly.

In other words, both "o"s are pronounced like hoe in English, but with an Italian accent.

[La Niña]

First of all FG, you asked "If the owner of the establisment says it's "oh-toe" with full American long-"o"s, is that not the official pronunciation and should we not all accept it?" I wasn't talking about anyone specific.

And you can call anything anything you want. Joe and Mario can do whatever they want - it's not a question of whether they're the arbiters - they can call it whatever they want. If I see the letters o-t-t-o together, and I know it's an Italian word, I'm going to pronounce it correctly.

As opposed to the name Otto - which in German should be pronounced similarly to the way otto is pronounced in Italian - but take Otto Preminger - he came to the US, and it became ah-toe. Oskar Schindler is called oss-ker by Americans. But not by me.

[La Niña]

In other words, both "o"s are pronounced like hoe in English, but with an Italian accent.

No, Stone, they're Italian vowels, not English vowels.

[La Niña]

Ron - perhaps you can't hear the difference between oh-toe, and what's on that MP3?  Does it sound like oh-toe to you?

Perhaps. Or, perhaps you are hearing it incorrectly.

I think Batali called the place Otto and not Eight because the cuisine is Italian and not American or English. Just a thought.

When I was a kid, one summer in Italy - my vocabulary was limited but my accent was so good that a woman in an ice cream store screamed at me and threw me out of the store because she thought I was some Italian kid making fun of her, pretending not to speak Italian. I hear the difference.

Yes, surely they used Otto instead of Eight because it's Italian food - so at least the owners could pronounce it correctly, no?

[Stone]

Remember the Saturday Night Live skit with Jimmy Smits when he went into a work room and everyone spoke everything in perfectly normal American but whenever they said a "spanish" word -- like burrito -- they said it with a horrible Spanish accent?

Or t.v. news people who call France, France and Germany, Germany, but say Nicaragua and Chile with a distinctive Spanish accent?

I'm curious -- when you say "chicken parmigiana" do you pronounce the "chicken" in English and the "parmigiana" in Italian?

Edited January 15, 2003 by Dstone001 (log)