Yeah, because everyone knows that pronouncing "rendez-vous" as "RON-day voo" is just too much work and effort, right?
LMAO! (which stands for Louisiana Merchants Association Overseas, right?).
I'll submit I'm being a bit huffy regarding non-Spanish speakers mispronouncing Spanish words and especially family surnames. However, Bbucko has once again nailed it.
Granted, there are hundreds of cognates shared by English and French and English and Spanish. There are also hundreds of cognates shared between Spanish and French. After all, the etymology of the word
damage is enough to make one wonder "What the fuck happened?" when it slowly creeped into English from French. And by pure accident most 'Mericuhns more correctly pronounce the word
garage compared to the original French than folks from the U.K. Most folks in the U.K. use two different forms of the vowel
a, whereas 'Mericuhns more frequently pronounce the word with two equally short
a vowel sounds.
Of course, historically there has been a much closer alliance between French and English. Just look inside your 'Mericuhn passport to see which language is still considered the lingua franca when entering a country where English is presumed not to be understood. But most 'Mericuhns often take great care to enunciate what I refer to as "toy French" and love to sprinkle it in their speech or writing whenever possible. Mind you, they more often than not do not speak French, but have somehow come to the conclusion that it's spiffy to include little
bon mots in their discourse.
Déclassé anyone?
Au courant? Déshabillé, je ne sais quoi? raison de'être, savoir-faire, soigné,joie de vivre, sang froid or the one expression that really makes me grit my teeth
le mot juste?
Unless you're Canadian, there's little or no reason for a native speaker of English to use "toy French." English, all on its own, has long ago appropriated a word or expression that means the same thing as all of those cute little toy French words and expressions. But more important (and most amusing) of all is when someone misuses or mispronounces toy French, more often than not (especially in the USA) other
native speakers of English who don't speak French are more than ready to jump all over a person's shit for making such a greivous
faux pas. Quelle horreur!
For those of you who speak and read Spanish -- or, more correctly -- castellano, you know that the default secondary language for "toy" expressions is Latin. But Latin is also the root language of castellano and all of it's dialects. Therefore, there is an honest linguistic reason for digging up an original Latin word or expression and employing it in written or spoken Spanish. However, in the USA it's a rare thing when a writer or speaker uses a Spanish word or expression to emphasize a point or present themselves as worldly and by extension somehow better educated.
Only once in all my 59 years has anyone or group jumped all over me because I mispronounced a non English word, and it was a hispanicized word at that. One day during a business meeting in Tucson I lazily mispronounced saguaro (the giant cacti often with limbs that look like arms that are native to the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts). I pronounced it as it would appear the way it's spelled:
sa-guar-o. I knew better, but since it's the State flower of Arizona my colleagues -- almost in unison -- screamed at me that saguaro is pronounced
saw-wah-ro! My only comfort was that I, among all of my incensenced colleagues who lived in Tucscon, knew that even
saw-wah-ro was a bastardization of the original name for the cactus from the aboriginal Tohono O'odham language almost wiped out by the white settlers who invaded and took up residence in that part of the USA.
Nick666 likes to brag how homogeneous and non racist San Antonio is. Well, he obviously does not speak Spanish. For anyone who has seen an episode of the animated cartoon King of the Hill, the creators of that program have a field day making fun of Texans trying to be politically correct when having to pronounce Spanish names for places and things. My favorite is whenever Peg, the well-intentioned wife and substitute teacher, announces she will make her famous and "authentic"
gwhackamolé (guacacmole). It brings tears to my eyes.
Unlike the somewhat blatant and obvious racism blacks still endure in this great country (The USA), Hispano Americans and Latinos, in general, tend to suffer like patient mules the conscious and unconscious racism directed at us. Most of you gueros and gabachos mean well, but trust me when I gently call you out for not having a fucking clue.
Like the project manager of a software company where I used to work would cheerily say to me each night when we left the office for home, "Penis noches!" Poor woman. She still has no idea how offensive her "innocent" attempt at friendly humor was. However, it was and still is so offensively racist that one day a Mexican American sales executive who worked at that same company one day keyed her new Lexus, motivated simply by pure frustration that the bitch should have known better. :smile:
For those who take offense at my use of the word bitch, you sort of understand what I'm complaining bout -- just square the offensive remark "bitch" by a power of 4 and you'll have a better understanding of where I'm coming from.
