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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jeff Wilder" data-source="post: 1734746" data-attributes="member: 5122">A couple of times.  Both times I was told, in the tone of voice one uses to speak to a not-too-bright third-grader, that "it's from French, so the -ce is silent."  I dropped it there, both times ... I'm not shy about helping people realize their own ignorance, but I had a nasty cold and so, ironically, lacked the will to be snotty.I actually speak French reasonably well, and read it better.  Altemont Ravenard's phonetic -- an educated Brit's "grass" -- is pretty close, but Brits tend to draw out the phonemes more.  "Graaaaws" as opposed to "grahs."  There's also a very slight "swallowing" of the R in French pronunciation.But, really, I don't expect anyone to pronounce the word like a Parisian, or even like a Quebecois.  I'd just rather not hear it pronounced like a Fox Sports NASCAR announcer, that's all.I hate to break this to you, but that particular tuber has never been spelled as "potatoe," at least in modern eras.  (Unless, of course, you're Dan Quayle.)Why in the world would you think it was a troll?  A peeve, sure, but why a troll?I dunno.  I don't even know that I pronounce it "correctly," although I pronounce it the same as Gary Gygax does: "drow," not "droh."  Hearing it pronounced differently doesn't bother me much, though.  See below.As above this doesn't bother me much.  I mean, before Mission Impossible II, how many people had actually heard "chimera" pronounced, even among those folks with some education in classical myth?  Assuming that "ch" is pronounced as a sneeze instead of a cough is a natural mistake in American English.  Deciding to make a "-ce" silent, on the other hand, takes some affectation.  That what I meant when I mentioned that hearing it pronounced "coop duh grahs" or even "coop duh grace" (with the long A) doesn't bother me much.But the truth is that it's just a peeve; an excuse to tell a tale full of sound and fury, and so on.  I find it both funny and annoying, like that kid in Trekkies who has no idea how "plethora" or "debacle" are pronounced.Jeff</blockquote>

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