Sunday, July 12, 2020

linguistic geekery

An interesting tour through the pronunciation of food names with Adam Ragusea:


The comments below the video point out several humorous hypocrisies. Since Ragusea has a background in journalism, a certain measure of hypocrisy isn't surprising.

A few quick remarks:

1. I agree that it's hypocritical to reject pretentiousness and then invent something called "Ragusea's Law," even if I think the law makes sense.

2. Ragusea's pronunciation of the French "le McDo" is wrong. He says, "le mack dooh," but en réalité, the French say, "le mack doh." This is another example of how journalists don't do their homework and end up reporting falsehoods.

3. In Italian, the "ch" combination sounds like a "k," hence "bru-SKEHT-dah" for bruschetta.* To pronounce the "sch" sound in a provocatively German way might raise hackles in Italy, even if Benito and Adolf were buds. (Italy and Germany were enemies in WWI.)



*And the Italian word for "why" is perché, pronounced "pair-kay."



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