Pronunciation of World Products

Accents are one of the great comedic vehicles - it all comes down to intent.  Are you trying to belittle or offend someone or not.  Lots of pronunciations are colloquial and theres no way you're going to get folks to pronounce things differently than how its pronounced where they're from even if it is "correct".  I pronounce "Chatillon Lux" the way I think it should be from its spelling, however, a few weeks back I listened in to a live video feed put on by some shaving luminary who's name eludes me at the moment but an American, and let me tell you, it wouldn't occur to me in a million years to pronounce "Chatillon Lux" the way he did.  Who's right who's wrong?  I don't know, lets ask hawns how he pronounces it.  I'm still not sure that would change my pronunciation though.  

Basically it comes down to non-english speakers sometimes have trouble with pronunciation of english words and english speakers often have trouble with pronunciation of foreign language words.  Thats it, no offence intended, its just a fact.

People ask me how they should pronounce our name or some of the scents, and I tell them they should pronounce it however they would like. After all, St. Louis finds new and unique ways to mispronounce French words thanks to an extinct dialect, Missouri French/Paw Paw French.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missouri_French
http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/pard...reet-names

hawns thats very enlightened and inclusive of you - I will therefore continue my Western Canadian pronunciation of Chatillon Lux Thank you.

So KAV why the need to criticize someone for not having all the knowledge you have? Because that is how your post came across to me.

This is how I perceived it as well. It sounded more like "Here's how these words are pronounced, you stupid Americans!" rather than trying to be "helpful". Then the accusations of xenophobia get thrown in there. Nice...SMH.

I'm just glad I'm not the only one that perceived it to be more of an accusation than a demonstration of helpfulness...

Interestingly, I did not perceive it in that manner but rather as a light hearted list of words we might all have struggled with nor did I see the post as directed at Americans. There are definitely limitations with the medium here and the risk of misconstruing intent is high - I try to assume benign intent unless its clearly and obviously intended to be negative.

And Doc47 I thought I inserted a little humour into my post You'd not be the first to think that I'm not that funny.

Accents are one of the great comedic vehicles - it all comes down to intent.  Are you trying to belittle or offend someone or not.  Lots of pronunciations are colloquial and theres no way you're going to get folks to pronounce things differently than how its pronounced where they're from even if it is "correct".  I pronounce "Chatillon Lux" the way I think it should be from its spelling, however, a few weeks back I listened in to a live video feed put on by some shaving luminary who's name eludes me at the moment but an American, and let me tell you, it wouldn't occur to me in a million years to pronounce "Chatillon Lux" the way he did.  Who's right who's wrong?  I don't know, lets ask hawns how he pronounces it.  I'm still not sure that would change my pronunciation though.  

Basically it comes down to non-english speakers sometimes have trouble with pronunciation of english words and english speakers often have trouble with pronunciation of foreign language words.  Thats it, no offence intended, its just a fact.

People ask me how they should pronounce our name or some of the scents, and I tell them they should pronounce it however they would like. After all, St. Louis finds new and unique ways to mispronounce French words thanks to an extinct dialect, Missouri French/Paw Paw French.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missouri_French
http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/pard...reet-names

hawns thats very enlightened and inclusive of you - I will therefore continue my Western Canadian pronunciation of Chatillon Lux Thank you.

I am forever cursed to read "Chatillon Lux" as "Chantilly Lace"... I just can't get past that song when I read that...

I always say it in my mind as "Sha-till-on Lucks" although I know that's way wrong. I actually took a little French in high school so based on my bad memory of it, I presume it's supposed to be "Shah-tee-on (silent n) Loo".

I always say it in my mind as "Sha-till-on Lucks" although I know that's way wrong. I actually took a little French in high school so based on my bad memory of it, I presume it's supposed to be "Sha-tee-on (silent n) Loo".

Sha-tee-yawn Lucks. That's how I would say it were I to ever find myself in a situation where it need be spoken aloud. Whether it's right, wrong, or somewhere in the middle is unknown to me, and frankly, rather inconsequential. I LOVE how hawns explained...It's pronounced however you want it to be. I like that.

Interesting and enlightening conversation. For me, I leave the other languages alone, and hope to communicate effectively in English, as opposed to mangling someone else's preferred pronunciation of their mother tongues. I get a kick out of my own natural instinct to pronounce certain words and names phonetically and sometimes amusing to others who may be paying attention. I offer three specific examples of words and names I have spoken in such a way that innocently offended or amused others: First, I had an optometrist named Dr. Schlappbach. I called him Doctor Slap back. This made his receptionist howl with spontaneous laughter, to my great surprise. I was informed that it was supposed to be pronounced SlaBock. Another time, I had a dentist (I swear) Dr. Toothaker. Later on I commented to someone else about it, and he also erupted in laughter, telling me he was related to the dentist and his name was pronounced in some different way, and I confess I don't recall how he said it was supposed to be pronounced. Third, there is a word in the english language that is spelled harass or harassment. I am proud to say that I always have, and always will continue to proudly pronounce it Her Ass, or Her Ass mint. The television news anchors exclusively have decided to pronounce that word as HAIR ess or HAIR ess mint. It makes them feel better, somehow, but I am sticking with my guns on this one. That's the way I speak and I make no apologies for that. My family was all farmers on both sides, and I've learned my speech patterns from some genuine and kind people who learned to speak from their rural ancestors.

Hey, I enjoyed the tutelage. Idaho kids can use all the help we can get.

have you ever heard a Philadelphia accent? we say wooder instead of water...

I always say it in my mind as "Sha-till-on Lucks" although I know that's way wrong. I actually took a little French in high school so based on my bad memory of it, I presume it's supposed to be "Sha-tee-on (silent n) Loo".

Sha-tee-yawn Lucks. That's how I would say it were I to ever find myself in a situation where it need be spoken aloud. Whether it's right, wrong, or somewhere in the middle is unknown to me, and frankly, rather inconsequential. I LOVE how hawns explained...It's pronounced however you want it to be. I like that.

That's how I usually pronounce it, the not-so-correct way. I just have heard the way they pronounce the names whenever I've heard them around here and went with it.

Of course, the best part of an online business is that you rarely have to say your name out loud.

I have traced through the thread and nowhere do I see Kav saying anything of "belittling" or "condemning" anyone - words used by others in the thread as something they would not do and which may make it appear as if that was Kav's point. As I read him, he merely talked of correct pronunciation. Which most of us probably aim for but value differently and consequently spend varying amounts of time working to achieve. If correcting others, it is, as is said above, "all in the presentation" and necessitates a modicum of sensitivity to appropriateness and situation. Obey to aptum, as Aristotle would have it.

As for correcting ME, I appreciate it and learn from it, so please do I'm not a native speaker, and although I'd likely pass TOEFL and IELTS with flying colours, I do make mistakes, from plain oversight -- last time was "uncorrect", which I very well know is incorrect -- as well as from not knowing how to express myself at times. An example of the latter of late is when talking of my new brush. A fellow asked about it being too big for my hand and I wanted to express how the size in fact makes it MORE comfortable: "Try placing a pencil end in your palm and gripping around the pencil with your fingertips and write a few paragraphs - you'd probably wish the pencil were bigger/thicker." I'm not sure if what I said there, or how I put it, was the best and most efficient way, but I didn't know how else to put it. This was hardly about pronouncing names of foreign shaving products, though. Sorry for derailing.

KAV, keep posting! I enjoy both content and language.