Chile

[Bill Palmer]

Am I remembering correctly from English 102 in 1959 that Byron intended "Don
Juan" to be pronounced with a palatal "J" i.e.,  "Don JOO- un",

Bill Palmer

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jonathan Lighter" <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, October 07, 2010 9:12 AM
Subject: Re: Chile


> ---------------------- Information from the mail
> header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Chile
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> My whole seventh-grade class was told by a junior high English teacher
> that
> the "correct pronunciation" was indeed / kwIksot /.
>
> Nobody could believe it, especially since he himself always said /kihoti/,
> with the apology that he "knew it was wrong" but couldn't shake the habit.
>
> He let us say it too, but since then I've felt guilty about it.
>
> Number of other humans I've heard say /kwIksot/ since 1959:   0.
>
>
> JL
>
> On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 9:05 AM, Jonathan Lighter
> <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wr=
> ote:
>
>> I cannot remember a time when the usual pronunciation among people I
>> hear=
> d
>> using the phrase (99.9% of them media people) was *not* "koo de grah."
>>
>> So it's been around - speaking conservatively - for at least thirty-five
>> years, and in the most prestigious U.S. circles. (But perhaps the "blow
>> o=
> f
>> fat" is what they meant.)
>>
>> JL
>>
>>   On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 7:49 AM, David A. Daniel
>> <dad at pokerwiz.com>wrote=
> :
>>
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>> -----------------------
>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Poster:       "David A. Daniel" <dad at POKERWIZ.COM>
>>> Subject:      Re: Chile
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> -------
>>>
>>> I posted on this earlier this year. Chile was Chilly in the USA until
>>> sometime in the 80's when there was a surge of hypercorrect
>>> pronunciatio=
> n
>>> of
>>> Spanish, at which time it became Chee-lay and the folks became
>>> Chee-LAY-uns
>>> instead of just Chillyuns. This culminated in 1990 with a hilarious skit
>>> by
>>> Jimmy Smits on SNL making fun of the whole over-pronunciation mania. It
>>> wasn=92t just Chile, of course, it was anything Spanish that happened to
>>> come
>>> up. The Smits skit tackled such things as En-shee-LAH-Thah and
>>> Burrrrrrr-EE-Tho as well.
>>>
>>> Another foreign-language hypercorrection that I have watched become
>>> popular
>>> over the last 10 or 20 years or so is the substitution of Coup de Grace
>>> (pronounced Grahss), which is the strike/blow of mercy, with Coup de
>>> Gra=
> s
>>> (pronounced Grah) which of course is the Strike/Blow of Fat. I used to
>>> hear
>>> Coup de Grah occasionally, but now seem to hear it almost exclusively.
>>> Apparently Americans think no French word ever has an ss sound on the
>>> en=
> d.
>>> The Coup de Gras always gives me interesting mental images.
>>> DAD
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
>>> Of
>>> Paul Frank
>>> Sent: Thursday, October 07, 2010 12:39 AM
>>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>> Subject: Re: Chile
>>>
>>> :      Re: Chile
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> ----
>>> ---
>>>
>>> As a native speaker of Chilean Spanish, this is something to which
>>> I've paid close attention since my family left Chile a few terrifying
>>> weeks after September 11 (1973, not 2001). In the 1980s, most
>>> Americans I heard pronounce the word Chilean said "ChilAYan"; most
>>> Brits said "Chillyin" (to borrow your spellings). I was living in the
>>> UK and in East Asia at the time and hanging out with Brits and
>>> Americans (and Chileans too). In the 1990s I began to notice ChilAYan
>>> from British mouths, including BBC presenters. I'm less sure about
>>> "Chilly" and "Chee Lay." I've always said "Chee Lay" or even "Chile"
>>> (pronounced the Spanish way). Incidentally, one of my pet peeves in
>>> the 1980s was the affected pronunciation in the middle of English
>>> sentences of "Nicaragua" and "El Salvador" as if they were Spanish
>>> words rather than perfectly good English words that ought to be
>>> pronounced the English (or American) way. You sometimes hear this on
>>> NPR: an American speaker pauses for a millisecond to pronounce some
>>> Spanish place name or personal name as if she or he were speaking
>>> Spanish. But I digress...
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Paul
>>>
>>> Paul Frank
>>> Translator
>>> German, French, Italian > English
>>> Neuch=E2tel, Switzerland
>>> Tel. +41 77 4096132
>>> paulfrank at post.harvard.edu
>>> paul.frank at bfs.admin.ch
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 3:21 AM, Jonathan Lighter
>>> <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com=
>>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> > Back in my day (1950s), "Chile" was pronounced like "Chilly."
>>> >
>>> > "Chilean" was pronounced as "chillyin." But since then "ChilAYan" has
>>> become
>>> > the media standard because it sounds more Spanishy. Sort of.
>>> >
>>> > Similarly "Chilly" has become the media "Chee Lay" because it sounds
>>> more
>>> > Spanishy.
>>> >
>>> > However, today I heard Tony Harris on CNN utter a new pronunciation
>>> > th=
> at
>>> > sounds like an American trying to sound Spanishy no matter what:
>>> "ChillAY."
>>> >
>>> > Like _Ole_!
>>> >
>>> > JL
>>> > --
>>> > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
>>> truth."
>>> >
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>>> >
>>>
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>  "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
>> truth."
>>
>
>
>
> --=20
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org


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