accent or mispronounciation? (was RE: [thechat] Chile's tennis fighting for the medals)

deacon web at master.gen.in.us
Sun Aug 22 13:09:23 CDT 2004


On 22 Aug 2004 at 20:52, Madhu Menon wrote:

> > > I want to know why the American commentator pronounces Chile
> > > as "chilli" :)

Perhaps because that's how you pronounce it in English, according to 
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, the American Heritage 
Dictionary of the English Language, and Bartlesby.com

I don't think I've EVER heard someone utter "chee-lay pepper" whether 
referring to the food or the magazine. Whether it gets spelled chili 
pepper or chile pepper, it's "chilly pepper" out loud.

> >Does 'chilli' fall under the purview of mispronunciation or accent?
 
> In this specific case, I call it mispronunciation.
> Why? Because this bloke is not your average Joe. He's a sports commentator 
> who's *supposed* to know better. I'm more disapproving of a professional 
> whose job involves getting these details right.

In the US, sports writers aren't supposed to be literate; they are barely 
required to be able to get both a subject and verb within three 
paragraphs of each other.  We extend the low expectations to 
sportscasters as well. 

Lancaster in Pennsylvania is pronounced Lank-a-stir, because it was 
named after Lancashire, but half the local news announcers say lan-
caster. When I was in Indiana, I heard local news announcers talking 
of Lake Wuh-WAH-see, when locals call it Wah-Wah-SEE.  If we can 
tolerate *newscasters*, for which we have higher expectations, unable 
to say *local* place names, there's not going to be much of an issue 
with a lousy sportscaster pulling a Dubya on a foreign placename.

But he was correct in this case. 

deke





 


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