How would you pronounce Margery?

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I thought this was a simple name (unusual now but hard to get wrong) until DH said it.

Would you pronounce it with a hard G or soft G?

I actually quite like Jean (my gran's name), maybe I'll go with that to avoid confusion!

Crikey this has turned confusing!

I'd say MarJerine but MarGarita

I'd say a hard G is the G in Margarita

And a soft G is the J sound in Margerine or Margery

In neither would I use a French J (zh) sound like in Je t'aime

Jean is a lovely name! (As long as its Jean and not Jean)

I like the Gaelic version - Marsali.

I don't think English has the sound as in French Gitanes or je.

Is DH English? Are you?

My Godmother did pronounce margarine with a hard 'g', as in Gary. I think it might be an upper-class thing?

It's also what the germans do, if that helps.

Zut alors, a French J/'zh' sound would be trés wanky if neither of you are French.

I'm pretty sure my Godmother wasn't German! She used to pronounce Shrewsbury (which I say like the rodent) as Shrowsbury, and Marlborough as Mawlborough. I assumed it was an upper-class affectation idiosyncrasy!

The inventor of margarine (I think he was French or Belgian) thought that during manufacture, thd greasy globules looked like pearls, so he named it after the ancient Greek for pearls (it was common for educated people to di such things, and pretentious uneducated people still do it).

British people at first used the hard G pronunciation but it fell into disuse as the word became treated as an English one.

People who like using nobby foreign accents clung on to the Greek derivation for some years.

MrsRuffDiamond - to be fair to your godmother, I think that is how the locals pronounce those town names (you'll tell me you are a local now!). Margarine with a hard g is barmy tho!

Oh, dear, do they?!

lots of older Scottish people say margarine with a hard G but then my Wee Granny also used to pronounce beige as be "beedge".

Haha, that brings back happy memories of going to stay with my Scottish aunties, who called pizza (new-fangled, at the time!) peeza pie (no 'ts' sound for the 'zz'!)

Alrhough I wouldn't use g for Gary I can hear differences in margarine and margery maybe its soft g or french j' ...

I do see what you mean op
But I'd say it as margarine without the final n sound
It was my grandma's name
(rather than like Mar-Cherie - best I can do)

Im the same steath but I can say that two different ways!

Mar jcher ie
mar ger ie

MrsRuffDiamond your godmothers is/was quite right. No one should be calling Shrewsbury shrews-bury! That's like calling Worcestershire war-cest-er-shire instead of wooster-shire. Just one of those funny quirks of English place name pronunciation.

with a soft G.

But isn't it usually spelt Marjorie?

It's an awful name anyway. Please don't pick it.

It just reminds me of horrible cheap margarine, and Marge is a very unattractive NN.

It's one of those names that falls into the category of 'Should NEVER EVER be revived' along with Mavis, Enid, Edna and Gertrude.

I take your point, nooka, but I think that the 'Shroosbury' pronounciation is quite prevalent, whereas 'Warsestershire' isn't.

I heard a presenter on the radio this very morning, pronouncing Shrewsbury 'Shroosbury'!

What's your take on Mahlborough/Mawlborough?

Maaarlborough is how you pronounce the fags, not the town!

Gaelic Marsali (mentioned by poster above) is to my mind much prettier than Marjorie.
And it's softer to say: approx MAH-sah-lih.

its Marjorie. If you spell it margery, youre going to look thick

and its a soft g, like in gerald

"My Godmother did pronounce margarine with a hard 'g', as in Gary. I think it might be an upper-class thing?

It's also what the germans do, if that helps."

Ah, that explains why my mum used a hard "g".

If I recall correctly, in French if there is an "a" after a "g" it is a hard "g". If there is an "e" after it then it is a soft "g". (It is an awfully long time since I did Franch at school so I am prepared to be corrected).

The French 'je' sound does exist in English, in words like television.

thanks