My son pronounces the file extenstion Gif as "Jiffs" and so do quite a few other sources why?
The general public in the UK call Bose "bossay" or "boss" or non Bose dealers call them "crap"
JVC is always "JCB"
Sharp is always "Sharpseys"
Maxell is always "maxwell"
aiwa is"urwer" "haywer"
sony is "Sunni"
Technics is "techneeks"
etc etc

This message was edited by bob griffiths on 03/29/04 07:42.

how do you pronounce them?

People in England don't pronounce any of them correctly, as far as I'm concerned. ;-)

GIF: Graphic Interchange Format - yes, I hear JIFF mostly, but I say GIF, although people tend to wonder what I mean until I say JIFF.

Bose: Boze as in "toes".

Sharp: Is, well, SHARP.

JVC: Is just as the letters sound.

Aiwa: Everyone I've heard pronounces it Eye-Wah with the Wah rhyming with Saw.

Maxell: Max-ell. Self-explanatory.

Sony: So-knee.

Technics is "techneeks" - Yep.

But (and this is not a funny comment as the first comment was) I find that a lot of people from England like to put their own pronunciation on a lot of things. They do know how it is pronounced, but like to throw a "curve" into the mix, for the fun of it.

Anyway, that's my take on things, for what it's worth.

G.

When the wife and I had our brief introduction to Japanese, a few years back, I was amazed at the number of everyday words/names we were, in fact, pronouncing incorrectly.

For example, Toyota. Most people would simply say Toy-ota. In fact it's really three syllables, To-yo-ta (with the first letter of each being pronounced hard).

Similarly Kimono is not, Kee-mow-no, it's Ki-mo-no.

Oh, and it's not Techneeks, or whatever; it's Ma-tsu-shi-ta. And Sony decided upon their name with a view to western pronunciation - we being an uncultured bunch, they thought it would be easier for us. (And I pronounce it So (hard o) -ny by the way).


This message was edited by djy on 03/25/04 03:29.

Intersting, deej! To-yo-ta, hey? When you pronounce it that way it has more of a Japanese accent, I find.

Cool!

Ka de Oh Kay.

I pronounce it Jiff, always pronounced it to-yo-ta, pronounce it more like bows (as in bows and arrow)

I've always pronounced it "jiff" as in "be done in a jiff". I've heard "gif" as in "gift" without the "t"... but then again, I had one friend that kept calling them "gifts" WITH the "t". :-)

The real fun bit was winding up Izumi; talking Japanese in a broad Yorkshire accent.

BTW it rymes with sit and pit

There were some people at my old place of work that just KILLED the English language in a number of ways.

Bit map - became bitmat for one guy.

Dog eat dog world - became "doggy dog world" for one lady.

I could go on, but it's been so long that I forget a number of them. But, the first guy had dozens of them that he screwed up. The funny part was that it was a pre-press house (preparing files, etc. before going to the printer), so you'd think he would know the difference between "bitmap" and "bitmat".

Yoiks!

G.

I do not believe that yoiks is a word. Your opinion however, may vary.

-Mr. Prefect (always on the job, striving for prefection).

Mr Prefect, I do believe I'm shocked.

No only is yoicks a word, Mr G has actually misspelt it.

Main Entry: yoicks
Pronunciation: 'yoiks
Function: interjection
-- used as a cry of encouragement to foxhounds

Not only did I mispell the word, but I used it improperly!

Yoicks! .......... uh, I mean... Yikes!