Why do Americans pronounce centaurs "centars"???

[niklinna]

Fellas, fellas, fellas. I didn't need an etymology lesson. It was a joke.

Then you should have used a smiley! THERE ARE RULES.

 

[niklinna]

English speakers never pronounce that one right...

I pronounce both "coup de grâce" and "grognard" "right".

Of course, I studied French in high school and college.

(By the by, one of the three sets of quotatation marks above is different from the others! Do you know what they are called?)

 

[niklinna]

And I thought that lingua franca was too obvious.

You know how Americans are, Morrus. They all love to travel, and then they only want to meet other Americans and talk about how hard it is to get a decent hamburger.

It's because you didn't use a smiley!

THERE ARE RULES, after all.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Wait, what, I don't see any "u"s in either of those words.

Because the color was out of space…

 

[Undrave]

I pronounce both "coup de grâce" and "grognard" "right".

Of course, I studied French in high school and college.

(By the by, one of the three sets of quotatation marks above is different from the others! Do you know what they are called?)

Guillmets? « coup de grâce »

 

[Marc_C]

Guillmets? « coup de grâce »

Yes those are 'guillemets chevron' also called 'guillemets français' or just guillemets for short.

You missed the 'e'.

 

[Maxperson]

Every time I hear this (just been listening to dungeoncast episode) it drives me nuts, like fingernails on a blackboard...there is a 'u' in it, so is "Centaur" like "Dinosaur".....aargh

Auto
Claustrophobia
Menopause
Plausible

The "ah" sound for AU is all over. Centahr is a reasonable way to pronounce it I think. As is pronouncing it like Dinosaur. It's not the only word like that, either. Is caramel pronounced care-uh-mel, car-mel, car-mul, car-uh-mel or some other way. I've heard all four.

 

[niklinna]

Guillmets? « coup de grâce »

If I had used them, that might have been an option! But I would have used them on both of the French words, and two is not one.

 

[turnip_farmer]

Auto
Claustrophobia
Menopause
Plausible

The "ah" sound for AU is all over.

The problem with doing examples that way, is you're assuming we pronounce all these other words the same. To me, the 'au' in all but one of the above sounds just like the one in 'centaur' and 'dinosaur'. Claustrophobia is the only odd one out. And for that I'd use an 'o' sound, not an 'ah' (though it is, of course, possible that we actually mean the same vowel there - talking about this stuff is not straightforward in written form unless we're all gonna learn the IPA!).

 

[jasper]

I have simple rule: however Steven Fry says it is correct.

Why should I care about a Furtrama Character? He