Why do some people put a T in "Chorizo"?
Discussion
We have foreign words that have been adopted into the English language. That's perfectly normal.
Plenty of those foreign words have been anglicised, and again, that's perfectly normal. Nobody calls Paris "Paree", of course. Except for the French, and we all know they don't count....
But why is it that some people insist on pronouncing Chorizo as "ChoriTzo"??? If the word was actually spelt with a T which was silent in Spanish, then Choritzo would be a perfectly natural anglicisation in the same way that pronouncing Bruschetta as "brooshetta" is even though the Italians pronounce it "broosketta" because the c and ch sounds are reversed between English and Italian, but ChoriTzo just makes no sense!!!
If you win a competition, you get a prize, not a "priTze", so why do we get ChoriTzo?? Are there any linguistics experts on here who could shed any light on it?
Plenty of those foreign words have been anglicised, and again, that's perfectly normal. Nobody calls Paris "Paree", of course. Except for the French, and we all know they don't count....
But why is it that some people insist on pronouncing Chorizo as "ChoriTzo"??? If the word was actually spelt with a T which was silent in Spanish, then Choritzo would be a perfectly natural anglicisation in the same way that pronouncing Bruschetta as "brooshetta" is even though the Italians pronounce it "broosketta" because the c and ch sounds are reversed between English and Italian, but ChoriTzo just makes no sense!!!
If you win a competition, you get a prize, not a "priTze", so why do we get ChoriTzo?? Are there any linguistics experts on here who could shed any light on it?
Someone on telly got it wrong and ballsed it up for everyone... http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmout...
Bill said:
Someone on telly got it wrong and ballsed it up for everyone... http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmout...
Now some of those I agree with, and some I don't. Would I get offended by a French chef pronouncing sausage as "sowsage" as he claims? Of course not, and I don't believe anyone would, because that's just the French accent, so why would they suddenly have perfect English pronunciation for food words if they don't have it for the rest of their speech?Even "eXpresso", which is similar to ChoriTzo in having an errant letter, is understandable, given that we have the word "express" in English, but I'm still befuddled by how anyone actually managed to include that T in the first place for others to copy!
wolfracesonic said:
English/Spanish friend of mine got wound up over James Martins mispronunciation of it. I guess the correct way is to pronounce the Z as a 'th' sound, like in 'thirst': But I'm English so I'll stick with choritso, thank you very much
Not so long ago it seemed every chef on TV was trying to outdo each other with the "horeetho" thing but then seemed quite content to add sherry rather than "hereth" to a trifle.Choritso for me as well. Plus it winds up pedants on the internet.
randlemarcus said:
Castilian Spanish says choreetho, so they are wrong. You are correct in British English, but the food is not British English, so while linguistically correct, you are morally wrong 
Well I know how to pronounce it correctly and do so, but then again I speak fluent Spanish, but even the natural British English pronunciation of it shouldn't have a T in it, which is my starting premise for the thread.
northwest monkey said:
Not so long ago it seemed every chef on TV was trying to outdo each other with the "horeetho" thing but then seemed quite content to add sherry rather than "hereth" to a trifle.
Choritso for me as well. Plus it winds up pedants on the internet.
I'm not getting wound up by it, I'm just trying to understand it.Choritso for me as well. Plus it winds up pedants on the internet.
If I was going to get wound up by these things, then I'd get wound up by "Panninis" - where Pannini is already the plural of pannino - or, as suggested above, people butchering the word Jalapeño, but those are natural English alterations which fit into the "reasons why we don't pronounce Paris as Paree" camp.
Possibly the most insightful answer so far has been that one word answer of "Pizza". We pronounce that with a T because that's how the Italians pronounce it, so maybe people looked at Chorizo and thought "it's a for foreign food with a Z in it, so it must have a T in there"?
GroundEffect said:
Because that's how you pronounce it...
People that say 'Jalapeno' with a hard 'J' at the start are cringe-worthy.
Jalapeño is one that is pretty much said wrong, as there's two things to trip up with the J and ñ. I think it's supposed to be pronouced Halla-pen-yo but when you hear Jalla-pen-o I expect to see Del Boy..People that say 'Jalapeno' with a hard 'J' at the start are cringe-worthy.
The opposite side of this is when my (half French) other half is ordering wine in restaurants, and she will not pronounce the french names properly for fear of sounding pretentious
Gassing Station | The Lounge | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff