Why do some people put a T in "Chorizo"?

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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?

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shindha said:

José, hmmm

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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!

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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.

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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.

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"?

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el stovey said:

http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/pedants_corner/1304866...

Mumsnet is best for people that care about this kind of thing.

No it's not. They're just talking about how it should be pronounced, not why.

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FredClogs said:

I say Choritzo, as in Chore - itz - zoh, in my best Peter Kay sound a like voice...

Nowt you can do about it is there? I can say what I want. If you're from East Lancashire and say it in a Spanish accent you're even more of a tt than I am ((unless you are a native Spanish speaker and just over for the Bury (that's Burry not Berry) black pudding festival))

I don't want to do anything about it, beyond understand why? If you'd never heard or seen the word before, would you, in your East Lancs accent, add in a T?

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FredClogs said:

Probably not, neither would I if I hadn't seen Fawlty towers, but I have.

I'm know language expert but if Chorizo were native Anglo Saxon word it would be pronounce Ko-reez-o with the inflection (stress) on the first syllable, like Chorister. Part of the whole thing with the foreigners is they start the word softly and work their way up to the end, or stress the middle syllable, we go in with a FANfair and tail off at the end.

Or it could be ch as in church or chopper... English has enough ways to confuse people in its pronunciation without anyone choosing to make up new ones by adding errant Ts into foodstuffs!!

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Speed 3 said:

Someone I know bought a Nissan Cash-Kai when they came out, I thought it was a Kwash-Key

Whereas everyone else knows it's really pronounced "Cash Cow".

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Moonhawk said:

h0b0 said:

Moët. When you know the real pronunciation you may still never use it.

Funny isn't it - I have only ever heard it pronounced 'mow-ay', presumably because people think it sounds french and therefore more classy (in much the same way as some people pronounce 'fillet' as in 'fillet steak' as 'fill-ay').

In fact it sounds much as if you were to speak it phonetically 'mo-et' - how common

Even the French pronounce it Mo-ay, though, unless they're adding on the "et Chandon", at which point it becomes "Mo-et ay Shandon", as "Mo-ay ay Shandon would be a right handful.

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Moonhawk said:

Kermit power said:

Even the French pronounce it Mo-ay, though, unless they're adding on the "et Chandon", at which point it becomes "Mo-et ay Shandon", as "Mo-ay ay Shandon would be a right handful.

Doesn't make it right though - and proves the point that it's not only the English who mispronounce words (possibly intentionally - i'm sure Many French people know how to pronounce it properly - but choose not to).

Also the fact that you are seemingly excusing the mispronunciation suggests to me that you also mispronounce it. Interesting how opinion can change regarding mispronunciation of words depending on what one uses and considers correct

I wasn't excusing or otherwise. As far as I'm concerned, Champagne is vile stuff good only for cooking sauces and sorbets, so if I were ever to buy any, I'd just go for the cheapest on the shelf.

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RizzoTheRat said:

Do the French? I know they have the whole thing about protecting the language and what words are officially allowed, but do they ahve a say in pronunciation?

The French have been far more insidious than the English, far more recently, from a control of language perspective.

We have a huge number of local dialects and accents of English - far more than the French or Spanish have in their languages - mostly because we've spoken English for so long it had the chance to develop locally.

In France, on the other hand, in many places you don't need to go back more than about 3 generations to get to people who couldn't actually speak French! The government never banned the other languages, but they did enforce a rule saying all schools must teach in French, and that only French could be used in the Public Sector. From having numerous local languages in the 19th Century, Breton is pretty much the only one left clinging on.

Spain is different, in that Franco did actually ban all the other languages - possibly the main reason why they've survived! - but whereas in the days before Franco, people would speak only Gallego, Basque, Catalan or whatever, these days they also all speak Castillian Spanish, but like in France, other than Andalucia and the Canary Islands, they haven't really had time to develop much in the way of regional variations.

Of course there are variations both in France and Spain, but nothing compared to the likes of Geordie, Scouse & Brummie, for example.