Does anyone pronounce 'niche' to rhyme with pitch?

[WithOnlyTheMemories]

Doing an online crossword today and the clue was 'rhymes with sheesh or pitch depending who you ask'

The answer (spoilers sorry) was niche. I couldn't believe anyone pronounced this to rhyme with pitch so I googled and the site I found seemed to say that the 'nitch' pronunciation was the most common.

Is that correct? If so, how have I never heard that in my 4 decades on this earth?

This thread reminded me I had how a lot of youngster now pronounce the letter Z as 'zee' and not 'zed' and it makes me stabby

But an English person would say 'ave you got any 'erbs? whereas an american would say have you got any 'erbs?

'...and that's just reminded me of bay-sil instead of basil 🙄

That’s very true. Depends where you’re from in England as to whether you drop the h before words like hello, herbs etc.
I just remember my Mum always telling me off when I dropped my h and it’s stuck with me.
It grates when Americans call it erbs

It sounds weird doesn’t it. Dropping the h on herbs, but not have

My mum's been gone nearly 30 years, but I still laugh when ordering a 'giraffe' of wine ❤️

You are correct. They use a ‘s’ sound for ‘z’ in some parts of southern Spain rather than the ‘th’.

It drives me mad when the Shipping Forecast readers say Cape Wrath, as in ‘math’*, instead of rhyming with ‘broth’. And that’s R4 - you’d think they’d know better!

*And while I’m at it, Brits who say ‘math’ instead of ‘maths’ are another lot I’ll have thrown into rat-infested dungeons when I’m a dictator. 🙂😈

Lord Grantham is using the modern pronunciation because it's a modern show. It should be pronounced Vallay. I've always heard it pronounced Vallay and it's only very recently that I'm starting to hear Valette, which is why it sounds wrong to me! I don't know when it changed though.

Although I will agree very grudgingly that cars can be valletted. Your personal assistant is a vallay.

The valet / valet one is interesting. I would pronounce the t when referring to a Gentleman’s personal assistant (not that it comes up in conversation frequently) and val-ay if someone were parking my car for me (also an infrequent occurrence, sadly)

I know someone who pronounces French salad dressing “vin a grey” which just makes me think of Hyacinth Buck-ay. 😂

No you have it the wrong way round, sorry! 'vall-ett' sounding the T is the older British pronunciation. For a man servant. Just Google it.

But it sounds wrong! I just can't countenance it!

@Vroomfondleswaistcoat I don't disagree that it sounds wrong! 😁But that is what they used to say apparently. Not sure if any still do - maybe members of the House of Lords!

And the King, I heard how he expects his valet to squeeze his toothpaste onto his brush for him. 😁

As well as in all of Spanish speaking Latin America.

Did they also have oh-REG-a-no 😆

I think the pasta pronunciation is fair enough - the Italian 'a' sound is not the same as the British one, and not the same as the American one. It's somewhere in the middle, so we just make the sound from our own accents that sounds most like it to us. I suspect the same is true of stroganoff in Russian, actually - maybe a shorter 'o' sound than the American version you heard, but definitely a longer sound than the one Brits make.

I agree with @mindutopia

I livec in America for about 15 years and I ‘neesh’ was the general pronunciation. But then I lived in university-centred towns and neighbourhoods. Given her username @mindutopia might have a similar environment.

I wonder whether all these claims that Americans say ‘nitch’ come from listening to the less educated on SM and at tourist attractions?

@MagpiePi Surely you notice that the Americans pronounce their word ‘aluminum’ correctly; the British spelling has an extra syllable. The ‘u’ vs ‘oo’ sound is simply a question of accent.

I can’t say I ever noticed ‘parsta’ and I travelled, and travel, the continent widely. The ‘ar’ is slightly Bostonian in general.

As for ‘stroganoff’, it obviously depends whether one regards the ‘g’ as part of the first syllable, making the ‘o’ short (British) or part of the second, making the ‘o’ long (American).
Perhaps a linguist can tell us why one is correct; otherwise I wonder why you think one is superior?

You’ve never noticed that in the UK ‘pasta’ is pronounced with a short ‘a’, as in ‘hand’ or ‘pack’? Even in areas where bath and path are pronounced with an aah sound, they still say pasta properly. The same as the Italian pronunciation, where the first ‘a’ and the last ‘a’ have the same short sound.

The ‘o’ in ‘stroganoff’ was the same as the way Americans pronounce the Gogh in Van Gogh - as in ‘oh’ or to rhyme with ‘low’.

ETA: have just checked google translate for the Hungarian pronunciation of stroganoff, and the first part is like ‘strong’, but without the n.

It’s American English pronunciation

Many of the Americans I know pronounce pasta the same way as the English. And I know Italians who say pah sta. So I would not necessarily think the short, hard ‘a’ is correct.

The OED tells me that the British borrowed the word ‘stroganoff’ from the French. ‘Boeuf stroganoff’ is pronounced with the ‘o’ half way between the American and British versions, if anything closer to American. And the ‘ff’ shades off into a a’v’ sound undoubtedly reflecting the Russian origins of the dish.

Something I learnt from an American editors' site is that for our word behove, Americans say behoove. I kid you not. And they also spell it as behoove. A bit niche (lol!) I know, but true!