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AIBU?

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Original poster

To argue about pronunciation of garage

123 replies

Jugglingjemima · 31/07/2011 12:07

I say garridge. Dp gets annoyed with this. He says garaje. I think that is French. I have asked him about what people enter into following a wedding. A marraje? I have asked him how the Queen travels on state occasions? In a carraje? Please clear this up before he gets into a raje, and I get into a ridge. (I have never had a garaje, nor a garridge, but sometimes I have had to take a car to a garridge)
(Don't say it doesn't matter; I have been practically housebound for the last two weeks)

OP posts:
TheMagnificentBathykolpian · 01/08/2011 09:10

Well, yes Tawrag. Grin of course. I say garridge. Good northern lass here too Grin saying garridge isn't what I'm on about. Telling someone that they are wrong for pronouncing it garr-arrr-je is what's not on. Cos we may say garridge, but it's not garridge and it's us that's wrong Grin

TandB · 01/08/2011 09:24

I say garridge. I am northern but I don't have much of an accent left at all. DP is south-western and also says garridge.

No-one has ever accused either of us of having poor language skills - I am now wondering if every Crown Court judge I appear before is thinking "Well I'm not listening to a word SHE says - she probably says garridge."

DP and I do, however, nearly come to blows over the Bath/barth thing. Unfortunate seeing as we live in Bath! He refuses to accept that it is a north/south thing and is convinced that I simply say it wrong. I have waved my two linguistics degrees at him and he still isn't having it.

imogengladheart · 01/08/2011 09:25

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MrsCarriePooter · 01/08/2011 09:30

I'm very southern and definitely garridge. I do have a friend who says garahge but then he says "thee-et-er" rather than "thear-ter" for theatre as well so I always thought he was just a bit posh.

TandB · 01/08/2011 09:41

It will all come out in the wash anyway. There have been arguments about pronunciation for hundreds of years, with books being published centuries ago telling people how to speak.

If I can dredge up any of my degree stuff, I seem to remember there being several recognised ways in which pronunciation changed. One was a slow, internal process. I have a faint recollection of something called the Great Vowel Shift which led to the bath/barth change among other things. One was straightforward borrowing from other languages. One was where people started applying the pronunciation if a foreign word to other native English words. So say garage was a native word (I know it wasn't) and we borrowed mirage from French, people might start correcting garridge to garaje, trying to be super correct, and it might stick.

Original poster
Jugglingjemima · 01/08/2011 11:28

Thank you everybody, esp Psammead and Kungfu, for the linguistic expertise. I know that there isn't a 'right' and 'wrong', and that one only repeats what one heard as a child. My beef is not that dp says, 'garaje', it is that he hates people saying, 'garridge' on the basis that it is 'lazy', when I think that 'garridge' takes more effort than 'garaje'. I have known for many years that he suffers from delusions of grandeur, which, ironically, is the most common delusion of all. JJxx.

OP posts:
Original poster
Jugglingjemima · 01/08/2011 11:30

(Kungfu, that would explain why I got into a ridge, yesterday)

OP posts:
user1472391113 · 03/04/2017 22:41

No way you cab pronounce this word as garage. Just look at the spelling.Get a grip

notcreative23 · 04/04/2017 09:09

I (American) say garage and my husband (from UK) says garridge. I love that we say it differently and I love the way he says it. He used to live in America (how we met, now we live in UK) and I remember hearing him say it when we were friends and it was one of the little things that made me love him so much. It was so different and quirky to me.

Sprungout · 04/04/2017 09:24

Garridge. And that ukip loser is Farridge.

DonkeyOaty · 04/04/2017 09:27

Unkind laugh at the zombie thread bumper proving Muprhy's Law Grin

ArriettyClock1 · 04/04/2017 09:31

This is 6 years old!

Intrigued as to how it got ressurected. Did someone to a search on the word 'garage'? 😂

summerholsdreamin · 04/04/2017 09:32

Garridge, end of...

MiL pronounces it "garaaaaaaj" because she channels Hyacinth Bucket Grin

user1472391113 · 04/04/2017 10:00

I have heated discussions about this with dp. He insists it is garidge while I have always pronounced in garaje. Maybe it is a case of beg to differ?

RortyCrankle · 04/04/2017 10:43

Can someone who pronounces it garridge, tell me where the i and d come from? It's garaje.

Garridge makes my toes curl under with irritation.

EnjoyYourVegetables · 04/04/2017 10:49

Age and page have the same dj sound though Rorty.

EnjoyYourVegetables · 04/04/2017 10:52

Would guh- RAYDJ to rhyme with rage be a happy compromise?!

floraeasy · 04/04/2017 10:56

I say Garridge.

I think the Americans say garaje?

NennyNooNoo · 04/04/2017 11:01

Along the same lines, for another French word buffet, would you say buh-Fay, boo-Fay or buffit?

floraeasy · 04/04/2017 11:15

I would say boo-fay if referring to a table full of food.

I would say buffit if referring to being buffeted by the wind.

AnneElliott · 04/04/2017 11:49

You are right 😀. DH is talking like an American!

floraeasy · 04/04/2017 11:59

I always think of the Frank Zappa song, "Joe's Garage" (pronounced "garaje" of course).

watchoutformybutt · 04/04/2017 12:03

I don't think I've ever heard anyone say it garaaaje but now I'm over thinking it and both ways sound odd.

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