to pronounce the champagne Moet mow-ett as opposed to Mow-ay and have a ridiculously stupid mini-row about it?

[GetOrf]

Disclaimer - I am not a poncetastic twat. Get that in before you lot accuse me.

At MILs last night, couple of SILs there. My MIL loves champagne, it was a distinct luxury when she was younger and I don't think she bought a bottle until she was in her 40s. Now she is making up for lost time and I always buy her a decent bottle for her birthdays, mothers day etc.

We were talking about different brands, and she was remembering the different ones she has tried, I said that a cheapish one which I had bought from Sainsbos (Charles something) was rated in the Sunday Times as being better than the more recognised brands such as Moet etc.

At which point my SIL laughed scoffingly and said 'I would have thought you would have known that the French don't5 pronounce the t on the end of the word, it is pronounce Mow-AY' (said in full on condescending terms).

I said fuck off dicksplash 'no it is pronounced Mo-ETT, theword is Dutch anyway'

She carried on 'no it's not, champagne is French not dutch, next you will be saying Edam comes from Wales'

She really got on my tits.

Ooh err! I knew it was 'Mo-ett' and about the 'pronounce it a 't' if the next word starts with a vowel' but I didn't know about the dutch thing or the trema thing. Mumsnet is so educational. You could post this on the 'any fule kno' thread.

My sister works for 'Nike' which is pronounced 'Nigh-key' - apparently the Greek goddess of victory. Sorry to divert from alcohol.

actually within Ford they referred to it as a K A, for obvious reasons, so we often did too (we bought ours thru a family member who worked there), it's not that stupid really.
Yes, I heard many moons ago that it is actually Mo-et, but like many words, "cho-reet-zo" among them, us Brits have evolved our own commonly accepted pronunciation so I quite happily and incorrectly use Mo-eh.
Weird eh.

surely if you just say moet it is mo-eh if you say moet & chandon you say
mo-ett et chandon?

beware people suggesting overposh pronunciations anyway OP. My friend once got so nervous ordering Bombardier bitter after a lifetime with his pushy Mum over-Frenchifying everything that he went to the bar in a not very salubrious area of Leeds and asked for a pint of 'Bom -bah-dee-ay'...Cue gales of laughter...

Well now that this one's settled, hands up who pronounces 'Glenmorangie' correctly (i.e. GlenMORangie rather than GlenmorANGie)?

A-dee-das or a-DEE-das? Ah-dee-das (emphasis on the Ah).

IKEA? EE-Ke-ah

Porsche? Porsh-uh

"What about Parmesan , I say it like Parm-e-sharn"

In Italian it is Parmigiano (Parmi-chiano) and English/German Parme-san. But I've not heard of the above...

Parm-e-sharn is an Americanism.

No - it's called a Ka, but the engineering staff etc I mean, not sales/branding.
Anyway I always found it a dumb name for that reason, but I had two SportKas and loved them, so I overcame it!

Haven't read such a good thread in AGES!

Americans also call Blue cheese "Bleu" cheese. That cracks me up.

Whatever the pronunciation is, it was spectacularly rude of your SIL to laugh at you like that, so for that alone I am delighted that you are right.

Did anyone mention Perrier-Jouët yet?

Oh what a marvellous and educatiinal thread :o

I LOVE pointless arguments like the one in the OP. I read on another forum recently of a couple who had a big going-to-bed-not-speaking row about who would clean up dog shit from the lawn. Except they had neither a dog nor a lawn :o

I most definitely say halapenyo and choritho. But then I did do Spanish at University so it would be a waste of a bleeding good education if I didn't. People who say "choritzo" get short shrift from me I can tell ya. I must have told my Mum a million times.

I once wrote to Pret ( nb nobody has a problem with THAT not having a silent "T" do they?) because they hadn't put the tilde (~) on the n in jalapeno ( I can't do it here but their printers could have done , ha ha) but the HAD managed to put the accent on the "u" in ragu" - they replied saying they'd change it in the next print run but they didn't. Oh well I tried.

Pedantic, moi? mwah ha ha.

I once went into Hermes and got corrected (rather condescendingly) by a member of staff for not pronouncing it air-maize. I thought Hermes was a Greek god, not French but ho hum the shop assistant knew better and was duty bound to correct my ignorance. I chose not to buy that day

Tootoo - perhaps you could collect some posh branded bags and go back in a do a 'pretty woman'?

Has anyone mentioned the Spanish 'carver'? DH was drinking it in Spain 20 years ago and always pronounces it as he heard it there, but people often don't know what we are talking about here.
"Cava, you know Spanish version of champagne?"
"Oh you mean CARVER!"
They do a great one in Lidl. (Leedl?)

Ooooo it's a minefield!

where do you draw the line tho?

I wouldn't dream of saying Porsche with a German accent, or Renault with a French accent, in the middle of a conversation when I was speaking in English. I'd sound very odd to myself! On the other hand, I wouldn't start talking about Worr-sester-shire sauce if I were speaking German. Which is inconsistent...

and you wouldn't say 'oh, please may I have one more scampo with my chips...'

I love scampo!!! Tee hee!!

lots of scampos and plenty of sors tar tar....

There is a happy medium, I think. Renault can be pronounced Renn-oh rather that Rennolt in English - that sounds really ignorant! I don't think you have to do the guttural 'r' though.
What about Prezzo? Do people not realise it's like pizza with a 'ts' sound in the middle? Or do they think it sounds poncy?