So like, if he got some rare unheard of testicle disease, and like, the docs studied it and named it after him.. err.. would they call it... uhhhh.............. Never mind.
My favorite French to English butchering... The folks of Versailles, Kentucky pronounce their town "Ver-Sales". I'm sure someone will correct me but it should be more like "Ver-sigh".
I grew up with more than a few Benoits that pronounced it "Benoyt", as someone pointed out above. But that was the 70s just before some folks became less concerned with becoming Anercanized and more concerned with pronouncing their surnames in a manner consistent with the country where the name originated, in this case "Ben-wah", as someone else pointed out above, reducing my comment to a needless personal anecdote. I'll add that you can learn much about how to pronounce names of French-Canadien origin by watching the NHL.
Unlike Beloit, WI... which is prounounced "Bel-OYT". Frank Zappa famously said of Beloit, "Beloit...sounds like a nickel being dropped in a toilet".
^^^But it's a natural phenomenon, to assimilate foreign names to the local phonetic system. But what does drive me bunkers is this: - The name Cadillac is a French name, of the founder of the city of Detroit (le détroit), and the old deluxe car maker, heardquartered there, named its product after him. It is pronounced in French "Cadi-yac" (two "l"s together always sound like that in French). - The Americans/Anglosaxons have assimilated it to their own pronounciation system, with a hard, dental "L". No problem here. - However, I don't think there is more than one Quebecer of French extraction out of 750 000 who will pronounce it as it should be in their language, that is by recognizing it as a French name; they opt instead to pronounce it like the name of the Anglosaxon-manufactured product... I tell them (my own compatriots) that they don't do the same with Chevrolet (a name of Swiss-French origin), and they shrug the argument off...
Totally off thread but I think this happens more often when the mispronunciation becomes a "brand". In addition to Cadillac, take the NBA franchise Boston Celtics (which should be pronounced Kell-tics but is pronounced Sell-tics by everyone, including the team itself). Of course there are always exception. The German shoe/sportswear company, Addidas, is pronounced "Ah-dee-dass" in the U.S. but as "Add-e-dass" in Australia.
My French spouse's first name is Alain. Here in the States, some of the pronunciations are Eileen, Elane, and the best is Alien. The correct pronunciation is Ah-LAIN. You can hear it correctly pronounced here under the French pronunciation: http://www.pronouncenames.com/search?name=Alain .
Ben-waah I'm from and grew up in Thibodaux, Louisiana; southwest of New Orleans along Bayou Lafourche. I had many friends, and a few girlfriends, growing up named Benoit, and I have a Brother-In-Law named Benoit. It's Ben-waah. ~Phil
Pretty well. The only really glaring Anglification is "trawn-keel" instead of "trawn-key" (tranquille). If he threw in the conventional sung extra half-syllable ("trawn-key-yuh"), it would sound a bit more like French singing. I kind of like that he's laid-back Scot about it rather than going for FRENCH ACCENT, since that tends to result in Pepe Le Pew-ishness. Apropos of nothing: "Jennifer Juniper" was my first French lesson. The Singing Nun album was my second, and it resulted in my junior high French I teacher being totally mystified about why an American 7th grader would speak French with a Belgian accent.
Michigan is kind of mixed up in the way its many French-settled cities are pronounced by the locals. In the Detroit region, most of them are pronounced in the Midwestern American parlance, i.e. Detroit (Dee-troyt), Livenois (Liver-noyz), Gratiot (Grae-tee-ot), etc. But in Northern Michigan, particularly in the Upper Peninsula, most of the towns are said in their French pronunciations, i.e. Sault Ste. Marie (Soo-saint-maree), Mackinac Island (Mack-in-aw). I guess it's just culturalism. The northern areas are more sparsely populated, so the natives haven't changed many of the pronunciations from the time of their founding, while the Detroit area was a major melting pot of cultures (and dialects) during the 20th century. That's just my theory though.
I never met Tab, the old girlfriends I don't know, and the Brother-In-Law says they are related somewhere back in history, but nothing he can claim. He's met him and they've talked, but they're not related by anyone they each know in the past few generations.
