Cava - cavver or carver?

[StillCoughingandLaughing]

Just been on the phone to my mother, who was waxing lyrical about the lovely ‘cavver’ (Cava) she’s bought to go with Christmas lunch. I’ve always pronounced it ‘carver’, with a soft A, and that’s what I hear more often than not, but she’s not alone in her pronunciation, so I have a nagging doubt I could be wrong. Can I get the views of the MN jury?

YABU = Cavver with a hard A
YANBU = Carver with a soft A

Hard A like ‘apple’ or ‘animal’. Soft A like ‘arm’ or ‘arse’

All those 'A's sound the same to me

Well she has offered two clearly incorrect options and asked which one was correct. What are we supposed to do?

Or just Cava in a rhotic accent

@GintyMcGinty

Hard A like ‘apple’ or ‘animal’. Soft A like ‘arm’ or ‘arse’

All those 'A's sound the same to me

Now if you wos proper Bri-ish innit, you'd pronounce arm - awrm and awrse.

Caava. I'm Scottish so no R anywhere.

Hard and soft don’t make sense in this context. Vowels can’t be hard or soft. They are long or short in English. Caa-va is long. Ca-va is short. It’s a long vowel.

Do you produce the 'r' in arsehole, oh merry MN pedants?

@StillCoughingandLaughing

I'll call it that because that's the official linguistic terminology and how I earn my daily cava.

None for you. Only sparkling Perry.

Babycham for the win!

(Has anybody got some of the branded glasses stashed in the back of a cupboard anywhere? I've always fancied having a set of them)

Hard and soft don’t make sense in this context. Vowels can’t be hard or soft. They are long or short in English. Caa-va is long. Ca-va is short. It’s a long vowel.

Short and long then!

Cah-vah
The two vowels should sound exactly the same and have roughly the same emphasis

This is funny about the letter T.

'Letter' used in his example, can be pronounced lettah or leh-ah
Neither a t nor an r to be heard!

They are both short to me then

@StillCoughingandLaughing

Spelling it phonetically? Eh? With some random r's thrown in? You've never studied languages have you?

I knew someone would have to ruin a lighthearted thread by being unnecessarily patronising.

The pompous twats just can't help themselves.

I pronounce arse this way

The pompous twats just can't help themselves.

I find it more pompous to be throwing around 'big' words like 'phonetic', when you haven't the faintest clue what it means.

Nope - here is how I pronounce arse

It's Spanish so technically it should be a short a - "cava". But we are English so we have anglicised the pronunciation and most people say it with a long a - "carva". So "cava" is correct but the most common English pronuciation is carva.

It's like "latte"; to me it sounds utterly ridiculous when people say "lart-ay" - it's an Italian word so it should be a short "a" but most English people have anglicised it.

@RudolphToldRedNoseNotSymptom

The pompous twats just can't help themselves.

I find it more pompous to be throwing around 'big' words like 'phonetic', when you haven't the faintest clue what it means.

You just can't help yourself, can you?

Carver and lava are pronounced the same to me. I'm Scouse so it's not just Southern England.

I don't think some of the snotty comments are necessary, it's just different regional accents. Not a big deal.

Neither. It's 'caava'!

Just a different way of spelling ‘carver’

They sound completely different to me!

Have we had 'Bath' yet?

I find it hilarious when people pronounce that as though there's an 'r' in it.

I wonder if they pronounce 'Catherine' as 'car-thrin', too?

I hope not, for the sake of my friend, because I'm sure calling her Carth would not go down too well.

CARvuh as per previous PP. This may be wrong.

I think the people banging on about Rs are just being deliberately obtuse, it's clear what you meant. In a lot of English accents a long 'a' is the same sound as 'ar'

as it's Spanish it's 'b' not 'v', but definitely NOT a short A sound.

Always on these threads there's this weird disdain for a south/South eastern English accent. It's an accent the same as the rest and just as valid

I didn't need to open this thread to know that there would be people going on about 'but there isn't an 'r' in it' .

Is it really possible that there are people left on Mumsnet who haven't yet had the rhotic/non-rhotic discussion yet?

Well she hasn't specified what regional accent she and her Mum are from, so we can't comment on that - we can only comment on the correct pronunciation! Which happens to be neither of the options offered!

Cah-vah