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October 10[edit]

Italian hard ‘c’ in English[edit]

Outraged by Olive Garden's practice of pronouncing bruschetta with /ʃ/, as if it were German, I'm looking for other Italian words containing ch that are used (and not commonly mispronounced) in English. All I've got so far is scherzo. —Tamfang (talk) 05:28, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Chiaroscuro, gnocchi, macchiato, architrave, zucchini, Machiavelli. Henry ^Flower 06:01, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

gnocchi? Is that like ganoci? —Tamfang (talk) 00:43, 12 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Francesco Schettino, captain of the Costa Concordia. Akld guy (talk) 07:04, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

English speakers will happily import any foreign word, and then butcher the pronunciation. Burger King sells croissants, and I'm fairly certain that word is not natively pronounced "crew-sont". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:35, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That'll be "Boor-ger King", I presume----Ehrenkater (talk) 16:15, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think most English English speakers can manage "croissant" better than that (perhaps because we're a bit nearer to France) but we don't usually manage that peculiar French "r" sound. Alansplodge (talk) 21:41, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

A common pronunciation in the States is something like "kwah-SAHNT". I don't recall ever hearing Bugs's "crew" rendering. --Trovatore (talk) 21:44, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

In contrast, the Spanish chorizo is often pronounced as if it were Italian, with a hard c at the start instead of /ch/, and /ts/ for the z instead of /th/. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 10:31, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure how that's "as if it were Italian". In Italian, the "ch" cluster appears only before "i" or e. To get a /k/ sound before any other vowel (or any consonant), you just use "c".

So basically chorizo is not a possible Italian spelling. An Italian who knows it's a loanword will presumably give it the Spanish "ch" sound. If there are any Italians who don't know it's a loanword, I don't know how they'd try to pronounce it. --Trovatore (talk) 16:25, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Who knows, some people might even pronounce it the way they'd say "scioriso": One occasionally encounters the verb scioccare ("to shock") spelled choccare, a pseudo-gallicism (or shoccare for pseudo-anglicism). ---Sluzzelin talk 22:41, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't be shocked to learn that cho occurs in archaic or regional usage. —Tamfang (talk) 00:39, 12 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Lists of English words of Italian origin might be helpful.—Wavelength (talk) 15:51, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Maraschino. --Trovatore (talk) 16:28, 10 October 2015 (UTC) Oh, sorry, I misread — I thought you wanted "commonly mispronounced", but actually you asked for "not commonly mispronounced". --Trovatore (talk) 16:30, 10 October 2015 (UTC) [reply]

Chianti. —Tamfang (talk) 16:57, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Michelangelo was not from Ischia. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:11, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Chicago. μηδείς (talk) 23:10, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
- Chicago has an Italian origin? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.101.147.43 (talk) 07:17, 12 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  - No. See Chicago #History. — Kpalion^(talk) 14:04, 12 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    - Nor does the "Ch" represent a /k/ sound, unless Medeis has a very unusual pronunciation. I suspect it may have been a joke. Henry ^Flower 05:02, 13 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]