A Better Perspective
A Better Perspective
Having studied French since I was in the seventh grade, I learned many of the words that English borrows from French in French before I ever learned that they even were borrowed into English. Thus, I have a natural inclination to pronounce them the correct French way (these are after all their words) rather than whatever way typical Anglos tend to mispronounce them. This gives me a better perspective, of course, although it does cause me to cringe whenever I hear the words mangled.
I will never forget going into Woolworth’s in my early twenties, looking for a new pad for my backyard chaise longue (pronounced shez-long). I asked a saleswoman to direct me, and she asked, “Do you mean a ‘chase-lounge’?” I replied, “No, I mean exactly what I said; the word is French.” Incongruously, she remarked, “I’m American.” At her obvious non-sequitir, I stared and clarified, “It doesn’t matter what you are; the word is French!” This wasn’t about her, after all; it was about correct pronunciation, or lack thereof.
To me, the most baffling American mispronunciation of French is in the inconsistency in our dealing with mauve versus taupe. Both are French words, and both have the exact same sequence of vowels (let’s ignore the consonants for a moment for ease of demonstration) and therefore the exact same pronunciation of vowel-sounds: A, U, E. Now in French, AU, whether or not followed later by a silent E, is pronounced like an abbreviated long O (similar to “blow” or “phone”). Thus, mauve and taupe nearly rhyme (but for the difference between V and P). And yet, when we Americans get hold of them, we fail to rhyme them even slightly. We pronounce taupe fairly correctly. But then we turn around and butcher mauve, bastardizing it (excuse my French) as something like MAWV. Yecchhhh!!! Sounds ghastly! Why do we do that??? (Well, I don’t, but….) And for that matter, what stops us from likewise changing taupe to TAWP??? You see? We’re weirdly inconsistent.
My most extreme wincing, however, is brought on by hearing the Americanized version of Notre Dame. (It means, “Our lady,” by the way). Its correct pronunciation can be approximately rendered thusly: NAHTR DAHM. But every time I instead hear it pronounced NOTER DAME (with a long A on the second word), I nearly jump out of my skin. As a teacher, although I taught Spanish, I used to occasionally challenge my students to figure out what Americanized expressions and words I was referring to, when I rendered the correct pronunciations of various foreign words and phrases, including French. This helped them to develop a better ear for sounds. They used to get a kick out of the way that I would shudder when they discerned Notre Dame accurately.
And so, my fellow Americans, whatever you may think of French politics in the weird world of today, one cannot deny that French is the most stunningly beautiful language in the world; its sounds are veritable music to a linguist’s ear. So, maybe we could try to at least correct mauve to sound more like taupe; that would probably be the easiest one to fix. Come on, shall we give it a try???
