43 Most Mispronounced Food Words

[Joe Riley]

I know I'm guilty of mispronouncing some of these, that's for sure: http://blogs.villagevoice.com/forkintheroad/archives/2010/02/43_most_mispron.php

[Sthitch]

I would disagree that there is a definitive way to pronounce "caramel", both Radom House and American Heritage dictionaries list three correct pronunciations: [kar-uh-muhl, -mel, kahr-muhl].

[leleboo]

I would disagree that there is a definitive way to pronounce

Several of the comments note that, from a linguistic standpoint, there are no errors, only variations.

[Mark Slater]

I know I'm guilty of mispronouncing some of these, that's for sure: http://blogs.villagevoice.com/forkintheroad/archives/2010/02/43_most_mispron.php

Any list that leaves off the most mis-pronounced word in restaurants (foie gras) is bogus.

[DonRocks]

I would disagree that there is a definitive way to pronounce "caramel", both Radom House and American Heritage dictionaries list three correct pronunciations: [kar-uh-muhl, -mel, kahr-muhl].

Another example of this French-style word might be "pecan" which has up to four pronunciations: PEE-kahn, PEE-can, puh-KAHN, and puh-CAN.

I'm pretty sure mktye has an opinion about "praline."

[Banco]

I know everyone says shar-COO-tuh-ree, but it hurts my ears and I don't care how fucking pretentious I sound if I pronounce it correctly. A lot of other variants on this list are pretty sketchy.

[zoramargolis]

I have one word to say on the subject: boloney!

[Banco]

Any list that leaves off the most mis-pronounced word in restaurants (foie gras) is bogus.

Remember how the announcer on the old Iron Chef pronounced it? "Fwagruh." It always made me laugh.

I have one word to say on the subject: boloney!

Wanna see my Wiener?

[MC Horoscope]

I know everyone says shar-COO-tuh-ree, but it hurts my ears and I don't care how fucking pretentious I sound if I pronounce it correctly. A lot of other variants on this list are pretty sketchy.

CHARK you terry

(I can picture this in New Orleans)

[tfbrennan]

Any list that leaves off the most mis-pronounced word in restaurants (foie gras) is bogus.

How well do people do with sommelier these days (the word, not the person)?

[johnb]

I know I'm guilty of mispronouncing some of these, that's for sure: http://blogs.villagevoice.com/forkintheroad/archives/2010/02/43_most_mispron.php

Not just mispronunciation, but also simple misuse, all rolled into one: au jus. As in "we serve it with au jus." Or worse, it comes with au jus sauce. Worst: it comes with aujus sauce. Pronounced ow juss, of course.

[Lydia R]

Several of the comments note that, from a linguistic standpoint, there are no errors, only variations.

I'd add Phở to the word list.

With this group, a spelling bee would be more challenging.

[leleboo]

I'd add Phở to the word list.

It's there -- on the second page.

With this group, a spelling bee would be more challenging.

I went to the citywide round of the Scripps as a kid, but stage fright did me in (too scared to talk into the mic)! Who else?

[washingtony]

I think lists like these are interesting from a linguistic point of view, but a lot of the judgment people hold for these "mispronunciations" smacks of unneeded snobbery--why is it that some people feel the need to shun the common English pronunciation for food-related loanwords? They insist that it's "bru-ske-tuh" rather than "bru-sheh-tuh", but I doubt they would say that a jazz band featured a wonderful "trom-bo-neh" rather than a "trom-bone". And while the people who made this list may go to the golden corral for a great "boo-fay" and not a "buf-fay", do they commend the skilled chefs in the back for "ad-rwah" in dealing with the crowds instead of being "ad-roit"?

Languages adapt, evolve, and change--loanwords are often modified and pronunciations can deviate greatly from their origins. Using a person's common pronunciation which differs from the original but perhaps not from common usage is a cheap way to get a rush of superiority.

[Banco]

[Deriding] a person's common pronunciation which differs from the original but perhaps not from common usage is a cheap way to get a rush of superiority.

Alas, nothing is cheap these days, and one must scrape together one's amusements where one finds them.

[leleboo]

I doubt they would say that a jazz band featured a wonderful "trom-bo-neh" rather than a "trom-bone".

I have to admit, this totally made me think of this post:

Arctic Char Tartare

Can't wait to hear my friend from South Boston order this dish.

[mdt]

I have to admit, this totally made me think of this post:

Can't wait to hear my friend from South Boston order this dish.

I don't think you have to worry about a Southie ordering that dish.

[leleboo]

I don't think you have to worry about a Southie ordering that dish.

I've gone back to edit that right -- I'm not the one who said it.

[Banco]

I need to edit that right -- I'm not the one who said it.

Don't forget Al Dente's sig line: "I know the taste of cork, and this wine tastes like cork."

[SeanMike]

So, mentioning pho...

I asked one of my Vietnamese coworkers one time about pronouncing it. I know how it's supposed to be pronounced, but I always felt a bit self-conscious, like I was trying too hard, if I pronounced it correctly.

He told me that Americans sound like (ahem, paraphrased) "a-holes" if we try to pronounce it correctly and that we should just say it "foe".

[StephenB]

Why is bruschetta listed but not maraschino?

[deangold]

Why is bruschetta listed but not maraschino?

Because Olive Garden doesn't serve a Martinez?

[FunnyJohn]

Because Olive Garden doesn't serve a Martinez?

Cackle!

[jparrott]

Because Olive Garden doesn't serve a Martinez?

Indeed.

[Anna Phor]

I'm a linguist by trade, and we love all languages and dialects equally and do not admit of "wrong" pronunciations as a matter of faith.

Nonetheless:

Worcestershire Sauce (woos-ter-sheer saws)

NO! It's wuh-ster sauce.. Every other syllable is silent.

[qwertyy]

I'm a linguist by trade, and we love all languages and dialects equally and do not admit of "wrong" pronunciations as a matter of faith.

Nonetheless:

Worcestershire Sauce (woos-ter-sheer saws)

NO! It's wuh-ster sauce.. Every other syllable is silent.

Not according to Merriam-Webster...

[Heather]

I'm a linguist by trade, and we love all languages and dialects equally and do not admit of "wrong" pronunciations as a matter of faith.

Nonetheless:

Worcestershire Sauce (woos-ter-sheer saws)

NO! It's wuh-ster sauce.. Every other syllable is silent.

According to my New England family, it's Woostahsher sauce. Accent on the first syllable.

We also get our water from the bubbler, and put jimmies on our ice cream, and "regular" coffee has cream and sugar.

[Xochitl10]

Azami and I have this argument all the time. I refuse to pronounce "kah-rah-oh-keh" as "carry-okie" because I speak Japanese, know that it's not "carry-okie" in Japanese, and that pronunciation makes my ears hurt. He speaks Japanese as well, and pronounces it "carry-okie" when he's speaking English because that's the accepted English pronunciation. So he's generally fine with the accepted English pronunciations of foreign words. If there's not an accepted pronunciation (i.e., the word hasn't entered common usage), then he will use the foreign pronunciation if he knows it and wing it if he doesn't. I also think winging it is fine if you don't know the language.

But "sake = socky"? No. It's "sah-keh," not "socky," and not "sah-kay." Charges of intellectual or linguistic snobbery embraced.

[Hannah]

Not according to Merriam-Webster...

But yes according to the OED; over here it's woostersher, there it's wuhster. Or you could just call it Lea and Perrins, which works for everybody.

[DonRocks]

I'm a linguist by trade, and we love all languages and dialects equally and do not admit of "wrong" pronunciations as a matter of faith.

Nonetheless:

Worcestershire Sauce (woos-ter-sheer saws)

NO! It's wuh-ster sauce.. Every other syllable is silent.

Are you sure you aren't thinking of Wooster, Ohio?

Also, as long as we're on the topic, can you explain "marshmallow?"

[leleboo]

It's how one pronounces Worcester, MA, too. But not worcestershire. The "shire" is definitely a syllable.

[ol_ironstomach]

But yes according to the OED; over here it's woostersher, there it's wuhster.

Nope, the OED says that the last syllable is pronounced. The Online OED renders non-ISO-Latin glyphs through tiny images that don't cut-and-paste, so I've re-rendered the IPA pronunciation here to match. Note the symbol that resembles the mathematical integral symbol ('esh') followed by a second schwa and optionally an 'r' sound.

('wʊstəʃə(r ))

The name of an English county: attrib. in Worcestershire sauce, which is made in Worcester (also ellipt. for this).

1686 PLOT Staffordsh. ii. §107 Worcestershire Salts. 1749 FIELDING Tom Jones X. iii, They found no fault with my Worcestershire Perry, which I sold them for champagne. 1843 Naval & Military Gaz. 1 Apr. 208/2 (Advt.), Lea and Perrin's ‘Worcestershire Sauce’, prepared from a recipe of a nobleman in the county. 1870 LOWELL Study Wind. (1886) 22 A bottle of Worcestershire. 1889 G. ALLEN Falling in Love, etc. 205 Mulligatawny soup, Worcestershire sauce, preserved ginger, hot pickles.

[DameEdna]

A friend insists that the third letter in "pho" need an umlaut. The Vietnamese don't speak German, do they?

[Hannah]

Nope, the OED says that the last syllable is pronounced. The Online OED renders non-ISO-Latin glyphs through tiny images, so I've re-rendered the IPA pronunciation here to match. Note the symbol that resembles the mathematical integral symbol ('esh') followed by a second schwa and optionally an 'r' sound.

I think what we've run into here is not an argument over pronunciation, but rather terminology. It turns out there's a separate entry for "Worcester sauce."

[ol_ironstomach]

A friend insists that the third letter in "pho" need an umlaut. The Vietnamese don't speak German, do they?

See LydiaR's post upthread for the correct diacritical marks.

I think what we've run into here is not an argument over pronunciation, but rather terminology. It turns out there's a separate entry for "Worcester sauce."

Bingo. There's no need to torture orthography here, lest we find ourselves in the classic Monty Python situation: "It's spelled Raymond Luxury-Yach-t, but it's pronounced 'Throat-Warbler Mangrove'."

[Michael Landrum]

As Richard Wagner, who inexplicably severely mispronounced his own name, said: "Without proper pronunciation, there can be no racial purity!"

Or was that von Goethe? (The one who came up with those wonderful caramels as a young man, and not to be confused with Fawn Gerta Liebowitz, who died in a tragic kiln accident at Emily Dickinson College just days before a sorority sister majoring in primitive cultures mysteriously disappeared from an Otis Day concert at the Dexter Lake Club)

The fact is, the field of modern linguistics long ago ceased to recognize, let alone debate, even the idea of correctness in any and all aspects of language. Not that that can stop me from laughing at the soldiers from Walter Reed we get up in Silver Spring when they try to pronounce "au poivre" or "bearnaise."

[FunnyJohn]

Azami and I have this argument all the time. I refuse to pronounce "kah-rah-oh-keh" as "carry-okie" because I speak Japanese, know that it's not "carry-okie" in Japanese, and that pronunciation makes my ears hurt. He speaks Japanese as well, and pronounces it "carry-okie" when he's speaking English because that's the accepted English pronunciation. So he's generally fine with the accepted English pronunciations of foreign words. If there's not an accepted pronunciation (i.e., the word hasn't entered common usage), then he will use the foreign pronunciation if he knows it and wing it if he doesn't. I also think winging it is fine if you don't know the language.

But "sake = socky"? No. It's "sah-keh," not "socky," and not "sah-kay." Charges of intellectual or linguistic snobbery embraced.

It may be sah-keh to you, but it's rice wine to me [Rowan & Martin]