Jalapenos!

[adamadamum]

Everywhere I go I seem to hear people saying "Jallapeenos"! The word is pronounced "Halapenios"!

I think saying 'halapenyos' is fine as long as you say it with your native accent (unless, of course, you're speaking Spanish!).

What irritates me is when BBC newsreaders read foreign names in the accent of the language in hand. E.g. "French President NEEkolah SARRkozee". You don't hear French newsreaders doing that with our names.

Chorizo is 'th' if you're Spanish, and 's' if you're Latin American.

Trillian - I'm pretty sure that Castillians say "choritho".

Just my friend saying it funny then

Yeth!

At least the Beeb try to get it right; they have a Pronunciation Unit, properly staffed by linguistics experts who cover a huge range of languages between them, who advise all the presenters (their advice, btw, is always to try to ask the person whose name it is how they say it). I don't know for sure, but I bet most of the other UK broadcasters don't bother to research it so well. [/end of BBC love-in]

Sorry for bringing up the chorizo thing! I'm not a Spanish speaker, just an all-round pedant, so I didn't realise the pronunciation would be so controversial. I know how 1 Spaniard says it and have always copied that...

Yes, their pronunciation dept is a very good thing indeed. But still, I think it's important to retain the integrity of one's own accent, otherwise it sounds false and rather naff.

Like you I think the Beeb is an excellent organisation; all that crap about the licence fee is dreamt up by rivals who want to get a piece of the action, then parrotted by people who've forgotten that words always sound best when there are actual thoughts behind them.

Yes, I agree about not poncifying one's own accent too much (as do the Pronunciation Unit, I remember from their long deliberations over how to pronounce Morgan Tsvangirai).

Sorry, what was it you were saying about the Beeb? Can't quite concentrate because of the constant stream of Radio 4 in my ear

Rofl! Sorry, Radio Whatnow? Never heard it in this household, matey.

You sound like a Beeb insider, by the way. Am I getting warm?

Dhs work mate was talking about his pizza with "filipinoes" the other day...

Sadly, no. My Dad once met Terry Wogan in a lift in the BBC Television Centre while he (my Dad rather than TW) was doing labouring work on his summer break. That is the sum of my professional connection to the Corporation!

Wow. I always assumed Terry would travel alone in lifts, to make room for his trouser cobra.

I am as sure as anything that Chorizo is pronounced with the CH said in the same way as we do in England! That's how all my Spanish friends have pronounced it anyway! It can be pronounced as Choreetho or Choreezo depending on where you're from, in most of Latin America, or the Canaries, they won't turn it into a "th" but in mainland Spain they generally do! So I'm with singersgirl there!

That's good, adam, I've been pronouncing it cho-reet-so, so not too far off the mark. My mum says kor-eye-zoh which is so wrong!

Mexican chorizo, which is different from Spanish chorizo (it's soft and to cook it you remove the casing and crumble it as you fry it) is pronounced Cho-REEZ-oh, and I'm guessing most of Spanish-speaking Latin America uses this pronunciation.

Jalapeno is 'halapenyo' though.

Mmmm, jalapenos (pronounced correctly ) I'm hungry now.