It is pronounced cleek, not click!

[fancytoes]

I am no SPAG pedant as I am rubbish at it, but I am a pronunciation pedant.

Please, if this is you, change your ways!

There are a thousand different pronunciations of choriço / chorizo / chorição. There are thousands of sausages. Choritso is as good as any other. Potato potahto*.

*No-one, anywhere says potahto.

This was part of our drinking game for Traitors, swig of camomile tea when anyone said this or ‘hun percent’.

Well thats a challenge isnt it

Im going to start saying potarto.

I've never seen Traitors, and off the back of this comment, I never will.

Where does the t come from?

Surely the anglisized pronouniation is 'chorizo', the spanish pronouviation is 'choreetho', I can't understand where choritzo has come from? To me, it seems like an Italian pronouciation of a Spanish word and I can't understand the logic of using it in the UK.

I’m a Londoner and always said cleek, as it’s a French word. Like Neesh not nitch.

There's no particular logic to the way foreign words end up pronounced, as this thread shows. It's probably to do with the different way our muscle memory forms when we're learning our native language as children - certain ways words are formed in foreign languages become extremely difficult to perform. Liked rolled or guttural Rs, or glottal stops. I speak some Portuguese, and the glottal stops and vowel sounds are something else - I have a good ear, but I'll never be able to do them like a native.

I never know how I should say paella. Should I just say Pie Ella in my London accent, or should I say Pie Eh Ah in a faux Spanish accent 🫤

Well obviously some people think it's Italian so copy the pattern of pizza.

Herb derives from Latin, herba.

Please, pleeeass tell me the correct pronunciation in English chorizo. I say Cho reee zo - other choritzo and they look at me as if I'm dumb.

How am I supposed to know how a Spanish word is pronounced in English? If people don't understand when you pronounce it the Spanish way, then pronounce it like people local to you do.

Oh yes this is me too. Half and half.

It’s even worse if you catch one of us doing it. There’s an episode of Murder She Wrote where I think it must be the murder weapon, because Angela Lansbury has to say ‘urb’ and ‘urbal tea’ a lot.

I almost died myself.

I know this already

Herb is an English word though. We use herb to refer to erm, herbs.

Maybe I expressed it badly. I pronounce it the 'Englsih' way when others want to sound all Spanish. They understand perfectly well what I'm saying but are snobbish about me not pronouncing it with a cool Spanish dialect

Yes indeed. so why pronounce it 'French' / American? as in erb. it sounds ridiculous.

I say Pie-ya. The -Eh- is almost undetectable. Pie-Eh-Ah is too distinct.

In Latin American Spanish it would be pie-ay-jah. Just say pie-ella, it's fine.

I wonder if Spanish speakers tie themselves in knots over English words in this way?

They tend to domesticise foreign borrowings e.g. a private driver is a chofer whereas English has kept the French chauffeur.

I did hear a joke once about a Spanish person making fun of someone using the typical Spanish pronunciation of Shakespeare - they pronounce it phonetically as if it were a Spanish name.

Because presumably it's arrived in the English language, and in America, via France? All the French words in English are likely latin in origin, should we be pronouncing them all like Ancient Romans now?

In Latin lessons at school we pronounced Vs as Ws - weni, widi, wici.

That theory cant be correct overall because in the 1600s was the average English globe trotter/invasionist of the New World saying erb or herb?

Bear in mind I suppose the very first settlers were from East Angular. Whats their pronunciation of it? Perhaps 'erb'?

Choritzo is both affected and wrong. If you were reading chorizo in English you'd say chor-is-oh. Which ironically is closer to some Spanish pronounciations than the bastand charitzo pronounciation that seems to be based on the pronounciation of the zz in pizza.

But the French had a huge amount of American territory later, so there were native French speakers everywhere. The Puritans were a small group by comparison.

I learnt Spanish outside Spain (and some regions of Spain don't say "th" also) so I say "choriso". Grinds my gears when people say "choritzo". It's not Italian and if it were it would need a zz to sound like that.

By the way Americans can't get over the fact that a military Junta is called a Giunta (for want of a better spelling) not a Hunta in the UK (or at least, when we had a lot of them in the 70s/80s, that's what it was called).