Pronouncing "Foie Gras"

[lamb]

Actually, the Lawn Guyland accent is a bastardization of the the Brooklyn accent.

Yeah, my dad is from Brooklyn and he pronounces pizza "peetz-er". Cracks me up.

I can't get over calling mozzarella 'MOOT zurel'

How do you feel about calling capicola "gabagool"?

When I first met my husband's Italian family for dinner at their house in Queens, I realized that I would need an interpreter to help me out. Step in my now sister-in-law who translated much for me. My m-i-l calls olive oil "olive earl" and toilet is "terlet". All spoken in the kitchen in her basement.

Gone from NY for 20 years, but husbands still calls soda "so-der" and our daughter Amanda is "Aman-der".

It cracks my kids up to hear him talk sometimes. He gets pissed because he really doesn't think he has an accent.

[fifi]

lamb... Amazingly, my ex talks just like that. The kids still tease him about saying "terlet". He is from New Orleans. There are parts of New Orleans where that accent is prevalent. Weird. The kids don't really have an accent but my son can do some wicked impressions of New Orleans accents. He can put us into a total-incapacitation-event of the giggles with some of his routines.

My son also speaks excellent French though he never took it as a class. I always call him with pronunciation questions. I took Latin in high school and French in college but he spent a summer there in school so I go with his recommendations. The Parisians were always complimenting him on his "accent".

[lamb]

lamb... Amazingly, my ex talks just like that. The kids still tease him about saying "terlet". He is from New Orleans. There are parts of New Orleans where that accent is prevalent. Weird. The kids don't really have an accent but my son can do some wicked impressions of New Orleans accents. He can put us into a total-incapacitation-event of the giggles with some of his routines.

That is weird. I never would have thought that a NY'er and a New Orleans'er would have been confused for their accents!

Maybe your son can help us out here on this thread with the phonetic pronunciations of some terms!

[Alex]

How do you feel about calling capicola "gabagool"?

And don't forget that calamari is "gahlaMAHD"

I think this is more Italian-American though, and not just regional. People would break your chops if you pronounced calamari correctly in my area.

Agreed. Perhaps even Italian-New Yorker (or maybe just Sicilian-New Yorker) rather than Italian-American. I remember that sopresata was super-sot, finoccio = f'-nook, etc.

[fifi]

Not all of New Orleans has this accent. There is an area around Magazine Street called "The Channel" (I have no idea why) where you would swear the locals are from Brooklyn. There is even a term used in NO for somewhat lower class citizens and that is "Yats". That comes from a familiar greeting... "Wher..y'at?"

My ex comes from an upper class family that has the typical soft southern accent. Where he gets some "yattiness", no one knows.

BTW... The Cajun accent is not found in New Orleans, unless imported.

[bloviatrix]

Of course, there's the whole Jersey City-influenced northern NJ thing.  My mom (from Cranford) has just a trace of it when she says words like "ball"--kind of like "boo-ul."

My favortie Jersey City influenced word is "who-wah" (whore).

[Mark Sommelier]

How do you feel about calling capicola "gabagool"?

And don't forget that calamari is "gahlaMAHD"

I think this is more Italian-American though, and not just regional. People would break your chops if you pronounced calamari correctly in my area.

Which exit?

[Schneier]

Which exit?

Heh.

[Tmnoland]

I think I'll have me a samwich for lunch today. Do we have any white brad?

oops, better go worsh my hands first.

--therese

[elyse]

After you get the cat off the ruff.

[pete ganz]

Which exit?

153.

[Juanito]

How do you feel about calling capicola "gabagool"?

The same way I feel about calling mozzarella "mutz-a-del" ,ricotta, "rigoth" and proscuitto, "brazooth".

Now, excuse me, but I have to go eat my gavadeels and salad, with vinegar -ette.

[tommy]

it seems like a lot of these italian-american pronunciations are just that: italian-american pronunciations. i'd submit that they're not wrong, and certainly nothing to find humor in. there are far funnier things than "gobbagool." mispronouncing french words. now *that's* a hoot.

Edited November 8, 2003 by tommy (log)

[slkinsey]

it seems like a lot of these italian-american pronunciations are just that:  italian-american pronunciations.  i'd submit that they're not wrong, and certainly nothing to find humor in.  there are far funnier things than "gobbagool."  mispronouncing french words.  now *that's* a hoot.

I'd go a little further and say that these words are almost an Italian-American dialect. During the years when America saw a huge influx of immigrants from Italy, most Italians didn't speak Italian in their own homes, they spoke the dialect of their village or zone. In fact, it was only relatively recently that the Italian census showed more Italians speaking Italian in their homes instead of dialect. This is, IMO, not such a great thing, as the dialects are beginning to die out, but that's for another discussion...

Anyway, getting back to funny Italian-American words, the vast majority of Italians emigrating to America were from Southern regions like Sicilia, Campania, Calabria and Puglia. Plenty of them probably only spoke dialect and didn't particularly speak Italian. The dialects in these areas tend towards extremely soft consonants (e.g., "c" might sound very close to "g" and "p" might sound very close to "b" and in some regions "s" was changed to "sh") and tended to minimize final unaccented syllables. This is exactly how "spaghetti" turned into "spaghett'" or "shpaghett'" or "zhbaghett'" depending on where your family came from.

It is also the case that the Italian immigrants worked hard to integrate into American society and, as a result, Italian language skills were often marginal in the first generation born in the States and nonexistent in the second beyond a few words. This is especially true of dialect language skills, since the dialects tended to be microregional and most immigrants spoke different dialects.

Understanding all this, it's easy to understand how grandparents from the old country might pronounce "capocollo" as "gabogol'" using soft consonants and minimizing the final syllable. Their children, and especially grandchildren, not having particularly well-developed Italian language abilities, might perceive this as "gabagool" and before you knew it, that was the "official" Italian-American pronunciation. ("Capicola" appears to be an Americanization as well... in Italy it's either "capocolla" or, in central Italy, "coppa.") A similar thing might have happened if there had been massive 19th century/eatly 20th century emigration to Italy from Arkansas or Boston. The thing that I think makes a lot of the Italian-American "mispronunciations" a little more funny than mispronunciations of French is the widespread use of the same "mispronunciation" and the widely held belief that it is actually the correct one. There's nothing like someone telling you "don't say pro-shoo-toh, it's bra-zhoot."

[mrbigjas]

Tell you what, when I was in Rome it really caught me off guard to hear them say pasta e fagioli, and actually pronounce the "e" and the "i".

[Bux]

As a kid, I thought "pastafazool" was a curse word. Later I learned what it was and much later how it was spelled in Italy.

[stephenc]

The department store Target is correctly pronounced

Tar-jay

[slkinsey]

The department store Target is correctly pronounced

Tar-jay

The funny thing for me is that the first Target store I ever saw was in Geneva, Switzerland -- so I thought this really was the correct pronunciation. Alas, it is not so. From Target's web site:

Back in 1961, Dayton's department store identified a demand for a store that sold less expensive goods in a quick, convenient format. Target was born.

In 1962, the first Target store opened in Roseville, Minnesota.

Needless to say, it's highly unlikely Dayton's was opening a store in Minnesota during the 60s that was supposed to have a Francophone pronunciation.

[Suzanne F]

Last night, HWOE was telling me about a dish he ate while I was out of town: Enchiladas Decameron.

I didn't know Boccaccio was back, cooking Mexican food. Did you?

[Alex]

The department store Target is correctly pronounced

Tar-jay

Especially if it's nearby a JC Peh-NAY.

[anil]

"I'll have the":

fwah gwah

frog wah

fwah grass

foy grass

foy grah

foy gwah

Neverending laughter at work over this one. Why is this one so hard to pronounce? Do people say they are going to Mardi Gwah?

DISCUSS

I bet people do not do a mistake when expressing verbally (and correctly) about

ahem!!!!! sex

Wait till Foie Gras is (=(cat())sexo)

[AzRaeL]

that's nothing!

i used to be a newspaper restaurant critic a few years ago and i just ADORE foie gras.

it's like the creamiest yummiest thing on Earth.

Right up there with Uni(sea urchin roe) and Marrow (drool).

Anyway, I wrote this gushing glowing totally omigod orgasmically delicious review on this Restaurant's Foie Gras.

2 days later i got this scathing letter of criticism from the SPCA telling me in full detail how geese are force fed to make their livers nice and fat.

I was tempted to write back that the Veal that came with the Foie Gras was incredibly good too *LOL* [bad karma alert!]

alas my editor said: ignore her and tell her to go eat grass.

[Suzanne F]

This thread is actually a good complement to the discussion here. To me, the whole point is that we can snicker in private, but we must still be mildly corrective, if at all, in public. Sorry if I'm being a wet blanket.

[Sparkitus]

When the suave debonair host says there's glass in his salad, do you take it away and bring one without fleur de sel and let him spread rumors about the time he found ground glass in his salad at the restaurant or do you correct him in front of his friends and guests? Whatever you do, is it the tip, politics, or etiquette that drives your response?

Someone once told me something very valuable about the restaurant business:

"sometimes, it's important for the restaurant to be right." This was because a guest complained there were "worms" in his dish of olives, when in fact they were fennel seeds. It is never done to embarass or humiliate a guest, but I think it is certainly appropriate to gently correct someone who makes a mistaken assumption that could result in a damaged reputation. It is done in the spirit of educating (not condescending to) a guest about the preparation or quality of your food.

[ludja]

just another accent plus food combination that comes out funny..

parent of friend from west-by-god-virginia pronounces

ice cream as..... 'ars cream'

(made for a funny sitchy-aytion when we were asked if we wanted to go out for ice cream)