Calvados

[Laurence Horn]

At 9:36 PM +0100 12/4/00, Grant Barrett wrote:
>I just spent the weekend in Normandy. My host served me home-made
>Calvados brandy.
>Enough of my esophagus remains intact that I can ask: How is the
>word "Calvados"
>pronounced in Anglophone countries? My host and the other (French)
>guests all pronounced
>it something like "cal-VAHD". Or was I also mis-hearing their
>pronunciation? The host
>and guests are from all parts of France.

In France, calvados is pronounced [kalvados], but it's often called
"calva" for short (not, I don't think, "calvad").  In English
speaking countries it's basically pronounced in the same way, mutatis
mutandis (aspirated [k], digraph for first /a/, schwa for second /a/,
first syllable stress, dark [l], etc.).

Larry