Pet peeve of the day: mispronunciation of the word "bruschetta". I'm not going to ask that everyone roll their "r"s, nor clean up their stray dipthongs (we have a lot of those in Texas), but please, please, please people, there is no "sh" sound in bruschetta. I realize there is an "s" and an "h" in close proximity, but proximity does not a digraph make (or maybe it does--but only proximal proximity and only then in a particular order). I could dive into Italian pronunciation rules here and explain why it is a hard c rather than a soft, but I've already spent too much time exposing the obsessive inner-workings of my mind, so I'll quit embarrassing myself and get to the point (let me know if you want details--there have got to be other freaky phonetiphiles out there). Think of a man named Bruce and a woman named Ketta, you're introducing them: Bruce-Ketta. Now think of it a little more phonetically and repeat again: broosketa. Now, look at the word again and see if you can say it without a "sh": bruschetta. Good . . .There, don't we all feel better? I know I do. Now go and tell your friends.
Maybe next time I'll tell you about the time I witnessed a disagreement over the pronunciation of fettucine nearly escalate into a fistfight . . . exciting stuff
7 comments:
LOL- we have an exchange student from Italy right now and the fresh basil and tomatoes from the garden have prompted- you know it- BRUSCHETTA. Lots of bruschetta between the two of us. We look at each other and laugh when we tell people what we're eating and THEY laugh and say,"You mean BRUSHETTA?!?!?!" LOL. The laugh really is on them..............
Wow! Really? I honestly had NO IDEA I was ever pronouncing it wrong. There are millions of us out there who obviously are pronouncing it out of sheer ignorance ~ and not necessarily in a bad ignorant way, just that we have never heard it pronounced properly and didn't know any better!
Wow! This totally blows my mind! I must now go educate others!
:D
P.S. ~ heard you were at your 20th reunion. Bums me out I didn't get to see you and that they don't invite those from other grades to your reunion too! I mean, I have lots of friends that were your age I would have loved to have seen. :( Oh well!
I know Becca, it's not your fault. If it's anyone's fault, it's all those cooking show people who continually pronounce it wrong--if you're filming a cooking show, at least do a little research into the proper pronunciation of what you're cooking! This is where the pet peeve of the day came from--a stinking cooking show where SHE KEPT SAYING IT WRONG!!! It doesn't bug me so much when friends and family say it wrong, but it really bothers me when TV "professionals" do it . . . I know, I'm weird.
Oh, and I wish you were at the 20 year too! You should have just crashed. But weren't you on babysitting duty so Mike could go?
Oh, I get it...now that both kids are in school, you have time to lay around and watch the Food Channel. But, I want you to know that everytime I go to the Olive Garden and order the bruschetta, I always make it a point to say "brusKetta" distinctly, so the waitress can hear me. Sometimes they say, "Very good! You pronounced it correctly." But most of the time they just look at me with a puzzled look--or they "correct" me..:) It seems to me that if you work in an I-talian restaurant (or on an I-talian cooking show), you should know how to pronounce the I-talian food!
I don't mind the how they screw up Bruschetta. What really kills me is how they flounder around with Vongole. Americans are embarrassing.
My name is Denise Brown, and I mispronounce certain Italian foods ... apparently ... :)
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