Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 October 10

= October 10 =

Italian hard ‘c’ in English
Outraged by Olive Garden's practice of pronouncing bruschetta with /ʃ/, as if it were German, I'm looking for other Italian words containing ch that are used (and not commonly mispronounced) in English. All I've got so far is scherzo. —Tamfang (talk) 05:28, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Chiaroscuro, gnocchi, macchiato, architrave, zucchini, Machiavelli. HenryFlower 06:01, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
 * gnocchi? Is that like ganoci? —Tamfang (talk) 00:43, 12 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Francesco Schettino, captain of the Costa Concordia. Akld guy (talk) 07:04, 10 October 2015 (UTC)


 * English speakers will happily import any foreign word, and then butcher the pronunciation. Burger King sells croissants, and I'm fairly certain that word is not natively pronounced "crew-sont". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 07:35, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
 * That'll be "Boor-ger King", I presumeEhrenkater (talk) 16:15, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I think most English English speakers can manage "croissant" better than that (perhaps because we're a bit nearer to France) but we don't usually manage that peculiar French "r" sound. Alansplodge (talk) 21:41, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
 * A common pronunciation in the States is something like "kwah-SAHNT". I don't recall ever hearing Bugs's "crew" rendering. --Trovatore (talk) 21:44, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
 * In contrast, the Spanish chorizo is often pronounced as if it were Italian, with a hard c at the start instead of /ch/, and /ts/ for the z instead of /th/. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 10:31, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure how that's "as if it were Italian". In Italian, the "ch" cluster appears only before "i" or e.  To get a /k/ sound before any other vowel (or any consonant), you just use "c".
 * So basically chorizo is not a possible Italian spelling. An Italian who knows it's a loanword will presumably give it the Spanish "ch" sound.  If there are any Italians who don't know it's a loanword, I don't know how they'd try to pronounce it. --Trovatore (talk) 16:25, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Who knows, some people might even pronounce it the way they'd say "scioriso": One occasionally encounters the verb scioccare ("to shock") spelled choccare, a pseudo-gallicism (or shoccare for pseudo-anglicism). ---Sluzzelin talk  22:41, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't be shocked to learn that cho occurs in archaic or regional usage. —Tamfang (talk) 00:39, 12 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Category:Lists of English words of Italian origin might be helpful.—Wavelength (talk) 15:51, 10 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Maraschino. --Trovatore (talk) 16:28, 10 October 2015 (UTC) Oh, sorry, I misread &mdash; I thought you wanted "commonly mispronounced", but actually you asked for "not commonly mispronounced". --Trovatore (talk) 16:30, 10 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Chianti. —Tamfang (talk) 16:57, 10 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Michelangelo was not from Ischia. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  20:11, 10 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Chicago. μηδείς (talk) 23:10, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Chicago has an Italian origin? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.101.147.43 (talk) 07:17, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
 * No. See Chicago . — Kpalion(talk) 14:04, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Nor does the "Ch" represent a /k/ sound, unless Medeis has a very unusual pronunciation. I suspect it may have been a joke. HenryFlower 05:02, 13 October 2015 (UTC)