Pronunciation watch

[french frank]

Hmm. You and I seem to be in a minority. Maybe I will move over to the contemporary pronunciation.

I don't think you're in a minority. MISchivuss is RP

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11642588 (first example in the video).

[ahinton]

Hmm. You and I seem to be in a minority.

Can you be certain of that?

Maybe I will move over to the contemporary pronunciation.

Why bother? You wouldn't start to refer to "mischeef", would you?!...

[gurnemanz]

OED has first syllable stressed: [mɪstʃɪvəs] which I will stick to. I had never thought about the origin of the word "mischievous". Interesting to read OED's etymology tracing it back to the French word "meschever", the converse of "achever" - to finish or achieve:

"Middle English: from Anglo-Norman French meschevous, from Old French meschever ‘come to an unfortunate end’. The early sense was ‘unfortunate or calamitous’, later ‘having harmful effects’; the sense ‘playfully troublesome’ dates from the late 17th cent."

[ahinton]

OED has first syllable stressed: [mɪstʃɪvəs] which I will stick to. I had never thought about the origin of the word "mischievous". Interesting to read OED's etymology tracing it back to the French word "meschever", the converse of "achever" - to finish or achieve:

"Middle English: from Anglo-Norman French meschevous, from Old French meschever ‘come to an unfortunate end’. The early sense was ‘unfortunate or calamitous’, later ‘having harmful effects’; the sense ‘playfully troublesome’ dates from the late 17th cent."

...whereas (as I sought to point out previously), "mischeevious" derives from the service station by J13 on M4; actually, that might be a possible one for Jack Dee in an introduction to a round of Uxbridge English Dictionary in a future edition of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue. It also calls to mind the lyrics of a song that run something like
We don't want no Delius,
We don't want no Sibelius;
What we want is red hot rock
in which the latter composer's name has to be forced to rhyme with that of the former, although I cannot now trace the authorship or source of this...

[jean]

Further proof (if any were needed) on this morning's Book of the Week that the old Westminster pronunciation of Latin ia being forgotten!

[gurnemanz]

I listened to Melvin Bragg's In Our Time on Garibaldi yesterday. Our host started out using the normal British pronunciation to rhyme with an impolite name for a hairless person. All three experts were using the authentic Italian pronunciation - with a short "a". At first Melv persisted with his own version but I was interested to note that by the end he seemed to have fallen into line with his guests. (In this high level discussion I didn't hear biscuits mention once but might have missed it).

[vinteuil]

... I think I wd be English in asking for garry-baldy biccies - and more continental if talking about the Italian chappie - certainly if trying to distinguish between the garibaldini and the garibaldeschi... But in an English conversation I think either long or short a would sound all right here.

[french frank]

... I think I wd be English in asking for garry-baldy biccies - and more continental if talking about the Italian chappie - certainly if trying to distinguish between the garibaldini and the garibaldeschi... But in an English conversation I think either long or short a would sound all right here.

I think you have to be a purist (and why not?) to stick to the Italian pronunciation for the biscuits (though I usually call them something different ). I'm inclined to be purist (I remember going to see the musical The Music Man when still at school and was shocked to hear a reference to the writer Bawlzac, albeit in a broad American accent).

[vinteuil]

the biscuits (though I usually call them something different )

... ah, 'squashed flies'?

Memories, memories...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I think you have to be a purist (and why not?) to stick to the Italian pronunciation for the biscuits (though I usually call them something different ).

What are opinions on the pronunciation of "Medici"? M'Deechi or "Mayd'chi"? Or ...

[vinteuil]

What are opinions on the pronunciation of "Medici"? M'Deechi or "Mayd'chi"? Or ...

Surely accent on the first - Meh-dichi.

... or, sometimes, meh-di-see. Or indeed meh-di-sees.

When in France...

http://forvo.com/word/catherine_de_m%C3%A9dicis/

.

[Richard Tarleton]

... I think I wd be English in asking for garry-baldy biccies - and more continental if talking about the Italian chappie - certainly if trying to distinguish between the garibaldini and the garibaldeschi... But in an English conversation I think either long or short a would sound all right here.

They were, after all, invented in England and first manufactured in Bermondsey by messrs Peak Frean. I think I first learnt this from GM Trevelyan's "Garibaldi and the Thousand".

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Surely accent on the first - Meh-dichi.

Yes - that is how I found myself pronouncing it the last time I used it for the first "unconscious" time after being brought up the accented second syllable. The more authentic "replacement" in Britain seems a relatively recent phenomenon.

[vinteuil]

Yes - that is how I found myself pronouncing it the last time I used it for the first "unconscious" time after being brought up the accented second syllable. The more authentic "replacement" in Britain seems a relatively recent phenomenon.

... not sure what you mean by "authentic"? The authentic Italian accents the first syllabub -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K94xbgv9FZE

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... not sure what you mean by "authentic"? The authentic Italian accents the first syllabub -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K94xbgv9FZE

That is what I meant: when I were nobbut a lad, I never heard the word pronounced any other way than with the emphasis posseted on the second syllable, not unlike the "weighting" on "Assisi".

(This is usually the point where somebody points out that the correct pronunciation should be "Aur-cissy".)