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<blockquote data-quote="Fifth Element" data-source="post: 5930593" data-attributes="member: 48135">If we use too many Britishisms our friends to the south get a bit antsy.One thing about growing up in the only officially bilingual province in Canada is that nearly all of my primary education was in French. So stumbling over French pronunciations has never been a problem. Coup de gras, as you've written it, would not have an S sound on the end. It's spelled coup de grace.In the glossary&nbsp; @<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=1" target="_blank">Morrus</a>&nbsp; linked to I see bulette listed as &quot;boo-lay&quot;. That strikes me as another mistaken attempt at a French pronunciation. If that were French, it would be &quot;boo-let&quot;. &quot;Boo-lay&quot; would be bulet. (Edit: also the &quot;boo&quot; part isn't really accurate, but we don't really have the needed vowel sound in English so it'll have to do.)Vargouille is another, listed as &quot;var-gweel&quot;, that strikes me as odd. The name is clearly based on the French word for gargoyle, which is gargouille, and is pronounced something like &quot;gar-gooey&quot; for lack of a more competent transcription.More properly, of course, gargoyle is the English word for gargouille. Presumably the name vargouille is vampire + gargouille? It's ironic that they rename a creature concept (it's a penanggalan), presumably to make it easier to pronounce, and then butcher the pronunciation of the replacement name.Yes, I learned that from Stephen Fry awhile ago. Not directly, of course, but via Youtube.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Fifth Element, post: 5930593, member: 48135"] If we use too many Britishisms our friends to the south get a bit antsy. One thing about growing up in the only officially bilingual province in Canada is that nearly all of my primary education was in French. So stumbling over French pronunciations has never been a problem. Coup de gras, as you've written it, would not have an S sound on the end. It's spelled coup de grace. In the glossary @[U][URL="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=1"]Morrus[/URL][/U] linked to I see bulette listed as "boo-lay". That strikes me as another mistaken attempt at a French pronunciation. If that were French, it would be "boo-let". "Boo-lay" would be bulet. (Edit: also the "boo" part isn't really accurate, but we don't really have the needed vowel sound in English so it'll have to do.) Vargouille is another, listed as "var-gweel", that strikes me as odd. The name is clearly based on the French word for gargoyle, which is gargouille, and is pronounced something like "gar-gooey" for lack of a more competent transcription. More properly, of course, gargoyle is the English word for gargouille. Presumably the name vargouille is vampire + gargouille? It's ironic that they rename a creature concept (it's a penanggalan), presumably to make it easier to pronounce, and then butcher the pronunciation of the replacement name. Yes, I learned that from Stephen Fry awhile ago. Not directly, of course, but via Youtube. [/QUOTE]

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