Re: "I'm coffee and he's espresso." -- facially nonsensical
From: Dylan Nicholson (wizofaus_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 06/11/04
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Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2004 13:46:53 +1000
"Brian {Hamilton Kelly}" <bhk@dsl.co.uk> wrote in message
news:20040610.0719.56617snz@dsl.co.uk...
> On Thursday, in article <2iq5dlFphuhrU1@uni-berlin.de>
> wizofaus@hotmail.com "Dylan Nicholson" wrote:
>
> > "Tony Cooper" <tony_cooper213@earthlink.net> wrote in message
> > news:12jfc0d9q1rjrg9jlaen13uahbjnc2j8u6@4ax.com...
> > > >
> > > Do I not understand the meaning of "pretentiousness"? It seems to me
> > > that pronouncing "latte" as the Italians do, rather than the way the
> > > average Starbucks customer does, would be the pretentious version.
> > >
> > > Frankly, I don't know how an Italian would pronounce the word.
> >
> > I would assume LAH-teh. But English speakers don't like ending words
with a
> > straight -e or -o. Hence lah-tay, for-tay, pron-toh-oo* etc. etc.
>
> Then you assume wrongly; the 'a' is short, and the 'e' is a schwa;
> therefore the word sounds almost exactly like the English "latter".
Huh? Since when was 'a' in Italian ever short?
As I understand it, all Italian vowels are 'pure' (ah eh oh {no diphthong}
ee oo), like Spanish vowels. Which means no schwas either.
I can't find a single source that backs you up, but I don't speak Italian.
Can we get an Italian speaker's opinion on this?
>
> > I'm not sure how the OP expects non-pretentious people (presumably the
> > serving staff in non-Starbucks coffee shops?) to pronounce it.
>
> Since the word is a borrowing from another language, then I would hope
> that both customers and servers could at least attempt to pronounce the
> word as speakers of that language do, and not to come up with something
> totally alien, based in part upon their misconception of which language
> is actually involved.
Plenty of (and possibly most) words borrowed from other languages end up
having their pronunciation adapted to the 'host' language. This is just as
true in English as in many other languages.
To attempt anything else is most definitely being pretentious.
>
> Another place where this happens is people using an Italian stress-
> pattern on the Greek dish "moussaka", saying "moo-SAH-car". In Greek,
> that word is stressed on the final syllable.
Would you consider the word 'computer' (or for that matter 'consider') to
have an "Italian stress pattern"? Moussaka follows the same pattern,
precisely (there we go again) because it is natural to an English speaker,
whereas emphasis on the final syllable of a 3+ syllable word is generally
not (unless the first two syllables are a regular prefix like 'over').
Dylan
- Next message: Patrick Powers: "Learning a language"
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