A Word on the Words

As the different pronunciations of bough, cough and dough indicate, the English language has quite a few areas where it is at variance with itself.

One of these is the wildly inconsistent way we use words from other languages.

Sometimes we retain the original pronunciation, or close to it, other times we don’t. But there is no clear rule.

For instance, rendezvous (ron-day-voo) retains its French sound, whereas horrible, also imported, is very different uttered by a Frenchman. It would be close to “orreebluh” in French.

And we say Paris, but a Parisian says Paree. We call the city Rome but the football club Roma, whereas both would be Roma to a native. It would surely be better to have a one-size-fits-all rule. Either we anglicise everything or nothing.

My preference would be an English language approach, because some foreign names are really quite difficult to say. Warsaw, uttered by a Pole, is Varshava – and that’s one of the easier Polish names.

And sounding out all words in a sensible way would stop the annoying and (in some cases) pretentious wrestling match we have with croissants.

I find it amusing that people, clearly not fluent French speakers at any other time, think it refined to utter a very Gallic “kwasson”, with a phlegmy “ch” sound near the start. To plain-thinking me it is a “crossont”, with a rolled R and final T.

Take that with jam on it!