How to pronounce _____ ?

[jkeyes1000]

Or eh-kee-vok.

[Jack Shalom]

I think Max Maven once said, perhaps with tongue in cheek, that even though the English word is pronounced ek-wi-voke, when using it in the conjuring sense, wouldn't it be nice to reserve the fake French pronunciation for the magical meaning.

[Max Maven]

I have said this for years, and without tongue in cheek.

When words travel, their pronunciations often mutate. Consider the huge differences between the French and English pronunciations of pince nez. Or, the surprising historical reason that "orange" in Spanish is naranja.

I say it's spinach, and I say the hell with it.

[Bill Mullins]

I've lost all respect for the OED when I found out that it says "literally" can mean "figuratively."

The OED is a descriptive, not a prescriptive, dictionary. The definitions it provides are based on how people use words, and not on how anyone thinks they should be used (although using "literally" when it is obvious that "figuratively" is meant is wrong wrong wrong.)

literally adv. c.colloq. Used to indicate that some (frequently conventional) metaphorical or hyperbolical expression is to be taken in the strongest admissible sense: ‘virtually, as good as’; (also) ‘completely, utterly, absolutely’. Now one of the most common uses, although often considered irregular in standard English since it reverses the original sense of literally (‘not figuratively or metaphorically’).

What's next? "Very unique" is allowable?

The OED's entry for "unique" includes an entry for extended use "especially with premodifying expressions", but notes "Use in the comparative and superlative and with modification by words such as absolutely, fairly, quite, thoroughly, very, etc., has been criticized on the grounds that an adjective meaning ‘that is the only one of its kind’ should not be not gradable, but in many contexts this meaning is not readily distinguishable from the extended use," and then provides an example of usage of "very unique" from Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. (But like you, I tend to be a purist on the matter. Something is either unique, or it is not.)

[jkeyes1000]

I trust that when we speak of a "fake pronunciation" of a French word, we mean that the speaker (not being French) is pretentious. Otherwise I cannot understand the concept.

[Dave Le Fevre]

the huge differences between the French and English pronunciations of pince nez

I'm intrigued. Contrary to the world-wide view that the UK lives in a Charles Dickens novel (smile), pince nez is a term that I encounter rarely. But when I do, it's pronounced pans-nay.

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/pronunc ... /pince-nez gives a small difference between UK English and US English pronunciations. I'm honestly not sure what the huge difference that you refer to is.

There are many words of French origin whose pronunciation have been mangled into English (manglicised?), an appropriate example being legerdemain.

Dave

[Jack Shalom]

But even that example misses the point. It is common for a language to use words from another and to adapt them to the sound of the borrower's language; what is unique here (very unique?) is wanting to pronounce the word in some way that is imagined to be more authentically like the source language, but is not that.

[erdnasephile]

http://www.bonappetit.com/test-kitchen/ ... the-orange

[Max Maven]

Regarding pince nez, I was referring to this not uncommon American rendering:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bUvfE8ZmDEE

[Dave Le Fevre]

Thanks Max. I'd assumed that it had to be something like that.

Though I must say that I'd never ever heard it. And sitting in a café with some friends yesterday, we were discussing language, so I mentioned pince-nez. And none of them had ever heard it pronounced other than the French way.

Such manglings will happen. Years ago, we were cataloguing my magic club's library and someone referred to The Conjuror's Vade Mecum (if memory serves) in a completely Anglicised way. Apparently Terry Seabrooke (who was our President) had always referred to it thus.

Dave