parMEzian cheese

[Mandy Adkins]

I have an aunt from Italy.  When she first came to live in Kentucky from
Italy, she was constantly correcting anything we said that seemed to come from
Italian.  The biggest of which was parmesian.  She said it should be pronounced
ParemZHAN.

Quoting Steve Boatti <Ittaob at AOL.COM>:

> In a message dated 10/1/02 11:59:06 AM, pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU writes:
>
> << Now the invented "Parmesian" seems to have been
> supplanted by the equally invented "parmeZHAN" (as also noted by Peter
> Richardson), apparently via the line of reasoning: "To make a word sound
> more foreign, and hence more authentic, stress the last syllable,
> pronounce
> spelled <g> as 'zh' and ignore all other spelling cues." >>
>
> I suspect "Par-me-ZHAN" comes from Italian-Americans pronouncing it that
> way
> based on the Italian pronunciation of "Parmigiano." In other words, a
> conflation of "Par-me-ZAN" with "Par-mi-JAN-o."
>
> Steve Boatti
>