Please help settle an argument between me and DH...

[ImSpeakingFigurativelyOfCourse]

How would you pronounce café?
Would you say ‘caf-ay’
Or ‘caf’ ?

Who knew the tiger who came to tea could cause such a debate?!

The accent on the é means it has an ay sound. Café, touché, Bon Marché.

Whenever I read the tiger who came to tea I definitely hear the father speaking in a posh, upper-class, pompous voice. He would definitely say caff-ay, not caff.

I would say cafay. Caff being a shortened version. Like your name is daniel but called dan for short.

Imspeaking: Tiger as the ultimate CF. I love it. Think you ought to start a thread about "who's the greatest CF in children's literature?" Goldilocks is surely the original CF, if not the greatest.

MonumentVal, Freud once said that sometimes a cigar was just a cigar (rather than a disguised dick). I rest my case.

A greasy spoon is a caff a nice tea shop is a caf ay

Caf-'a' as in the letter 'a'. No y sound.

Caffy, like Cathy but with a f.

Caff is how we would say it

Oh, and it's a caf-A (as in the sound "A").

Cafay

So if a café is a lovely little tea shop would they actually serve sausages, and chips and ice cream? (And probably more beer for mummy) Or would that only be in a caf? If it’s the latter, does that mean that in the context of the tiger who came to tea, my DH is actually right, and it’s caf?

I haven’t tried to garner this much meaning from a book since a level English...

Oh and @NTitled, Goldilocks is a massive cf! Just going to break into your house, eat all your food and complain about it, sit in all your chairs and complain about them as well as breaking one, and then mess up all of your beds and then fall asleep.
Entitled brat.

How can you say 'a' without a 'y' sound ?

Like PPs, I always think there are two different places - caf-ay serves tea and scones etc, while caff serves extremely large breakfasts involving things like black pudding and bubble and squeak to blokes who still have bits of wet cement clinging to them.

I would say the one in TTWCTT is definitely is a caf-ay!

Ha! Let's give Goldilocks the CF award, then. I am wondering who else might qualify.

IME, any kind of "caf-A" is a "caf-A". But I have led a sheltered life, and have only ever heard people talk of "caffs" as a joke.

Now wondering a bit about the Disney princes, and whether they had consent when they kissed all those unconscious girls.

Where I'm from we say caff ee

We had a great story when the DC were small, btw. "Joe and Annie are visiting Farmer Bill with Mummy". Dunno what Farmer Bill and Mummy had been up to, but Joe and Farmer Bill were the spitting image of one another.

@ImSpeakingFigurativelyOfCourse Pleeeease start a thread about 'subtexts in children's books/films'...!

I'd call it a Caf around here. (Midlands way!).

Cafay

For me, a tea shop is one where you'd buy tea, scones and fancy sandwiches. A coffee shop is like Costa and the like. A cafe (caffy) is a greasy spoon place that sells crap tea & coffee in chipped mugs, soggy chips covered in gravy or mushy peas, full English breakfasts and cheap cakes.

Caf-ay most times but cafee when my parents black country roots show through.

It is caff-ay and when I'm in other parts of the country that's how I say it but locally it's a caff-ee and saying it the 'proper' way would get you "check out Miss fancy pants over here" looks.

Caff is just short for cafe isn’t it?! It’s not a word in its own right!

Another vote for caff-ee

What Mrs ZB said. I'm so confused at how it can be pronounced as anything but caf-AY. Is it not like like seeing Thomas and for some reason reading it aloud as Tom??