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Chris -- 2018-04-11
From various want-ads. A bedroom suite sounds elegant, but isn’t the correct term “suit,” meaning a related collection?
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I fear the correct term is ‘suite’, which would describe a matching set of furniture. ‘Suit’ would be matching articles of clothing. Your post reminded me of an old joke, a variant of which, to my surprise, responded instantly to a google enquiry:
The first prize in the raffle is a diving suit . . . no, it’s a divan suite”. Bernard Manning’s tuxedo-clad compere and master of ceremonies had a fine line …
www.nostalgiacentral.com/tv/comedy/wheeltap.htm – 13k – Cached
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Well, Peter, it’s never too late (for me) to learn. Thanks for the correction! —Lisa
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I don’t know how it’s said in the UK, but I recall having heard “suite” in this context always pronounced like “suit.” My office is on the second floor, suite 3 (pron. like sweet), but Vana show them the fabulous three-piece bedroom suite they’ve won (pron. like suit.)
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Well, I’ve got good news for you both. Suite and suit have a common origin occording to Online Etymology. The original meaning had to do with a following of attendees in a court. From there followed a meaning refering to their formal apparel(suit). A hundred or so years later(1600’s), the French used the meaning to refer to rooms, furniture or musical movements that were meant to go together(suite- pronounced “sweet”). Being the word nazi that I am, I think each word should be pronounced in the way that it came to us. Same goes for amoire(ahmwha), foyer(fowyay) and porte cochere(port coshare). I know, sometimes it’s just me. Massacare away!
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booboo wrote:
Being the word nazi that I am, I think each word should be pronounced in the way that it came to us
I see what you’re saying there. It seems to me that we (English speakers) do this to a certain degree, to our credit. There’s “voila” and “hors d’oeuvres,” which we pronounce as close to the French as our tongues can likely take them.
But I’ve given up on foyer. If everybody in my part of the country pronounces it like it’s spelled in English, then in some sense, it becomes the English word “foyer,” a word that isn’t pronounced the way we got it. There’s no more sense in my saying they’re wrong than in my claiming that “rather” should be pronounced like they say it in England, which I suppose is closer to “the way it came to us.”
That, and I’ve noticed correcting people tends to get me not invited back over for dinner. And then my wife’s all upset. So, principles schminciples.
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English has at least tens of thousands of borrowings from French, and we give most of them unambiguously anglicized pronunciations. For the most part, no one complains. As Tannerpittman noted, the anglicized pronunciation eventually becomes the pronunciation, and that’s that.
But some speakers resist letting certain borrowings go native. Most of the time, these are fairly recent borrowings that still retain an air of “foreignness.” But I think sometimes they’re words spelled in a way that just looks really “French.”
Booboo’s use of “massacre” made me think about how no one goes around saying “mah-SAH-cruh” in English. We could; there’s nothing terribly difficult about that pronunciation, which would get a lot closer to the French original. But not only do we change the vowels, we also shift the stress in the word: “MASS-uh-kuhr.” And that appears to be acceptable to everybody.
By contrast, many English speakers resist the “armor” or “ar-moyr” pronunciations of “armoire” pretty energetically. At first I thought that maybe “massacre” had had a lot more time to go native. But no—armoire is first recorded in English in 1571, and massacre in 1578; they’re pretty much exact contemporaries. I think the key is that “oire” —it just looks so “French.” “Massacre” doesn’t have so obviously Gallic a flavor, so we’re quite happy to massacre the original pronunciation. But I worry that there’s something a little arbitrary in insisting on the “original” pronunciation of one, but not the other. Don’t get me wrong here—I say “arm-wahr” too. But I use it because that seems to me the standard pronunciation I hear employed around me —not because it approximates the French original.
I’m also struck by our use of “half-way” pronunciations when it comes to French borrowings. The only time I’ve ever heard anyone correct somebody else regarding the pronunciation of “foyer,” they said something like this: ”’Foyer’ is from French, so you should say ‘foy-yay.’” And I remember thinking, “But wait! The French pronunciation is going to be more like ‘fwah-yay.’ Why is it important to the person doing the correcting that the second syllable get a French pronunciation, but not the first?” But since I don’t really care whether people say “foy-er,” “foy-yay” or “fwah-yay,” I kept my mouth shut. All three variants are listed—in that order—in Merriam Websters. You can use any of the three at dinner at my house, and I’ll probably still invite you back. Just don’t tell me I’m obligated to use the same one you do.
Last edited by patschwieterman (2007-05-05 20:28:08)
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Okay, I relent, I’ll not be so harsh in my judgement. It’s one of the funny and interesting things about language- it’s like worms wriggling/wiggling on a sheet of paper; it’s impossible to get static and describe. If you do get a freeze-frame and aptly describe, it becomes meaningles because the worms have moved on and are no longer in the same position. Yet, the transitional occurences are particularly fascinating to me because we, as drops of water in a language stream, get to behold a current change that generates a new word. Albeit one drop, sometimes we’re a very opinionated drop and we want to influence the water around us to the greatest possible extent, but the stream will go where it goes. It’s also amusing, the decisions we make individually concerning which pronunciation we choose for these transitional forms. What’s important to one person isn’t for another, and it will be interesting to see which one prevails and to try and understand why. That’s what I like about Patschwieterman’s comments- insights and hypotheses of the psycology of language transition. As an aside to Patschwieterman’s foreign word import observations I’d like to propose the other extreme in motivation of the speaker; over-foreignization in place of anglanization. Example; coup de grace. There is already a good thread on this. The only possible explanation of its inception and its gaining popularity is the desire by the speaker to appear intellectually sophisticated, enabled by the unchecked but easily verifiable correct pronunciation. As Tannerpitman says, it BECOMES the english word! Well, at least until the worm wiggles again and the stream moves on.
My lessons learned:
Resistance is futile!
Don’t get uninvited to dinner!
Thanks for some interesting and thought provoking conversation!
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patschwieterman wrote: ...I’m also struck by our use of “half-way” pronunciations when it comes to French borrowings. The only time I’ve ever heard anyone correct somebody else regarding the pronunciation of “foyer,” they said something like this: ”’Foyer’ is from French, so you should say ‘foy-yay.’” And I remember thinking, “But wait The French pronunciation is going to be more like ‘fwah-yay.’ Why is it important to the person doing the correcting that the second syllable get a French pronunciation, but not the first?”
Pat’s comment on “halfway” French reminded me that Bill Buckley made a similar observation with respect to pronunciation of “envoy.” His point was that it should be “ahn-vwah” if you’re going with the French, or “en-voy” if not—that “ahn-voy” was neither here nor there.
At least other prigs will invite us to dinner. Especially if we bring good wine!
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Just make sure the wine isn’t Beaujoulais, or the whole thing starts up again.
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Beaujoulais! Tanner, that is clever, and I say “ha ha,” or if I’m feeling French, “haw haw haw.” To be polite, I suppose we should just drink the wine without identifying it aloud.
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Getting back to “bedroom suite”...
Clearly “bedroom suit” is not a suit one wheres in the bedroom, but given the regional confusion over how “suite” and “suit” are pronounced, I’m wondering if there are any in-the-language constructions where the two words might be confused. I haven’t quite succeeded at finding a pair, but the closest I have come is this…
“Office Suite” is a software package, but an “office suit” isn’t quite a standard term for clothes worn at the office.
Also, a “business suit” is something worn to the office, and a “business suite” might be a specific set of rooms in a hotel—but I don’t know whether this latter term is standard usage.
(And, in general terms, one could have either a “three-piece suite” or a “three-piece suit.”)
Does anyone know of such a pair that might cause confusion? Perhaps there’s an eggcorn …or at least another bad pun… in the offing here.
Last edited by jorkel (2007-05-09 16:57:26)
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Vista heights NE basement sweet for rent Huge 2 bedrooms sweets close to all amenities
https://qdb.ca/property/basement-for-rent-164860653
Seen today on reddit, as a local offer to rent a “garden sweet”. Calling a basement apartment a “sweet”, though, is laughingly optimistic. The many I have lived in were more akin to living, say, 5 feet under – not quite 6 feet under, but with affinities.
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