288980 Tue Apr 16 09:48:32 -0700 2002 36 27 General Chowhounding Topics 0 1562181 Help!! My dignity is at stake!! A radio DJ friend of mine was interviewing our local pompous windbag of a local gourmet store owner this morning, and he insisted on pronouncing them "seeps", as in "marshmallow peeps". Convinced he was wrong, and dying to publicly call attention to his error, I called in to correct him, as I believe the correct pronunciation is more akin to "seps". He stood his ground, but I still think I'm right. I believe it is actually spelled with the little hat shaped accent over the first "e", which in my thirteen years of schoolgirl French would mean it is pronounced my way. Can someone confirm this for me? It will absolutely kill me if I have to concede defeat to this blowhard, but I will if I am proven to be in error...but I don't think I am....and he really is a pompous windbag!! Thanks! Tue Apr 16 09:48:32 -0700 2002 0 Fargo 1 1562182 According to my dictionary, you are right--it is indeed pronounced "seps." It is often written with an accent aigu (the "\") over the first e. Tue Apr 16 10:04:36 -0700 2002 1562181 0 Stephanie L. 2 1562187 Just a small point of correction: the accent on the first e ( "\" ) is actually called an accent "grave", not "aigu" (which is "/") Tue Apr 16 10:32:23 -0700 2002 1562182 0 Chili 3 1562204 I'm totally willing to be corrected on my French punctuation -- far less humiliating than being wrong about food!! I always thought it was the funny little hat-shaped accent -- but am happy to be smarter about it today! Tue Apr 16 11:49:21 -0700 2002 1562187 0 Fargo 3 1562222 D'oh!!! You are most correct; obviously, my French is a tad rusty. Tue Apr 16 13:07:43 -0700 2002 1562187 0 Stephanie L. 1 1562184 You are dead on right. Go get 'em! Tue Apr 16 10:24:30 -0700 2002 1562181 0 Fred and Wilma 1 1562185 You were indeed correct. The word is pronounced "seps" and your friend needs to get a French dictionary. Tue Apr 16 10:28:15 -0700 2002 1562181 0 Dena 1 1562188 There are few things funnier to me than pompous people who pop their own balloons by mispronouncing words directly from their area of "expertise." Cèpes are the same as porcini mushrooms, only in French, the same way sabayon is the French for zabaglione, etc. etc. etc. The accent over the first "e" in cèpe is an accent grave, which means the word would absolutely be pronounced "sehp." I once heard a woman with a fake British accent on a serious radio talk show pronounce the word "archetypal" "artch-TIPP-ull." I was driving and I almost went off the road. Tue Apr 16 10:36:27 -0700 2002 1562181 0 Tom Steele 2 1562270 Speaking of pompous pronounciations, I nearly fell off my chair when I saw Martha Stewart doing a show with her mother. They were shelling pecans. Martha's Mom, a sweet lady, was pronouncing the word "PEE-cans", but Martha persisted with the more affected "pi-CONS". I suppose not all of us learned pronunciation from our parents! And no, I do NOT watch Martha on anything more than a passing basis. Tue Apr 16 20:14:42 -0700 2002 1562188 0 Gourmando 3 1562279 Actually, sad to say, technically martha pronounced it correctly. The other pronounciation is a regional thing not proper English. This is too bad since I am against anything martha says and does. Tue Apr 16 22:02:30 -0700 2002 1562270 0 The Rogue 4 1562404 I'm from the midwest we say pi-cans (or at least that's what I've heard.) But since Martha is the anti-christ, I will start saying PEE-cans. thanks for the heads up. Wed Apr 17 16:10:36 -0700 2002 1562279 0 LisaLou 4 1562427 Actually, I think that either is correct in North America, but Martha's pronunciation sounded so pretentious in contrast to her mother's. After all, from whom do we first learn to pronounce things? Wed Apr 17 20:40:28 -0700 2002 1562279 0 Gourmando 1 1562191 LOL that was a funny post, Fargo. From dictionary.com: pronounced as you said. See attached URL. I despise pompous windbags too - go get him! cep or cèpe Pronunciation Key (sp) n. See porcino. http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=cepes Tue Apr 16 10:57:04 -0700 2002 1562181 0 EatDrinkMan 1 1562199 LOL also....I loved your post! Pomposity is my most unfavorite traight seen in others. I am so glad you are right! And the band of Hounds is right there with you. I can think of so many times that I've kept my mouth shut - congrats on speaking up. Tue Apr 16 11:23:56 -0700 2002 1562181 0 Kay Burns 1 1562203 Thanks so much to you all!! I knew the Chowhounders would come to my aid!! My dignity (at least on this topic) is intact!! Maybe in his spot next week the pompous windbag will do a piece on red wine and feature a segment on "Murlott"!!! Tue Apr 16 11:46:41 -0700 2002 1562181 0 Fargo 2 1562208 Before you confront the old windbag, please let me remind you that in general, the final "s" on a plural is NOT pronounced in French. So what you really want to tell him is "sep" not "seps." The final "s" is only pronounced on certain words, and when there is an elision to the following word that starts with a vowel. As in: "Les cepes avaient un arome magnifique." (lay seps ahvay [grunt] ah-rom mah-nyee-feek) -- The mushrooms smelled great. In one of those esoteric literary-only forms of the past tense. (Sorry, I still can't figure out how to do correct French accenting with this keyboard.) By the way, that little hat is called an "accent circonflexe" -- as in "circumcized" -- to denote the loss of the letter "s" that would have formerly followed the one with the hat. Sorry if this is all too much for some people; it's just that I took French from 7th through 12th grades, and then had it in college as part of a Comparative Literature minor. Plus, I'm trying to get teaching jobs right now (not in French, though). Tue Apr 16 12:06:06 -0700 2002 1562203 0 CTer 3 1562218 Oh Thank The Gods!! I've been saved from a hideously embarrassing French grammar faux pas!!! I did actually remember the silent "s" thing, so I might have been able to save myself the humiliation, but at this point I'm just going to try to avoid engaging any further with the gasbag!! Tue Apr 16 12:28:59 -0700 2002 1562208 0 Fargo 4 1562220 I know EXACTLY what you mean. Tue Apr 16 12:34:33 -0700 2002 1562218 0 CTer 4 1562237 I can see "seps" as an Americanized compromise, but sorry, Mr. Blowhard, not "seeps". Tue Apr 16 15:11:46 -0700 2002 1562218 0 C. Fox 5 1562259 Yes, "seps" would indeed be the correct english plural pronunciation. Just as "bistroz" would be the correct english pronunciation for the plurial of bistro, while in french the s would be silent (or "t", as "bistrot" is also correct, as a francised version of the russian word...) That pompous guy on the air was all the more wrong because "cèpe" is spelled with an accent grave, which means the vowel is pronounced all the more briefly. Tue Apr 16 17:30:35 -0700 2002 1562237 0 garçon 2 1562276 Crepes The e in crepe has a circumflex accent over it which means that there used to be an "s" there (as in crespe") and it is pronounced: crep NOT creep NOT crayp Moet is pronounced Mo - ett NOT Mo - ay HOWEVER how about VICHYSOISSE ???? Why does everyone insist on making the final "S" silent???? NO It is NOT 'vee shee swah'!!!! It is "vee shee swazzzz" If it were spelled vichysois it would be swah but it's spelled vichysoisse - the final double 's' followed by 'e' tell you to pronounce it as "swazz" I guess not very many people took French in school!!! Sorry to be so pedantic but it was hammered into me by some very stern R.C. nuns!!!!! Tue Apr 16 21:37:53 -0700 2002 1562203 0 Ann McL 3 1562306 It's "vichysoise", single S, pronounced vee-chee-SWAZ. In French, an "s" surrounded by two vowels is usually pronounced "Z", whereas a double "s" is always pronounced "S". You're right about this item, it is one of the many french names that is usually mispronounced. Wed Apr 17 03:38:38 -0700 2002 1562276 0 garçon 4 1562310 Merci garcon, for correcting my spelling of vichysoise! I appreciate it! Wed Apr 17 07:33:38 -0700 2002 1562306 0 Ann McL 5 1562314 Nope, you were right on the spelling -- another example of the perversity of French orthography. Wed Apr 17 09:09:01 -0700 2002 1562310 0 C. Fox 6 1562463 We're both wrong! The correct spelling is vichyssoise, consistent with the pronunciation rule I've stated above (if it were spelled vichysoise, it would have been pronounced vee-chee-zwaz). I had to hand-write this one for the right spelling (then confirm with my Larousse), the first one didn't look right... Thu Apr 18 02:37:35 -0700 2002 1562314 0 garçon 7 1562527 Damn! you're right! Whatever happened to my memory for spellings? Replaced with recipes, no doubt... Thu Apr 18 14:35:02 -0700 2002 1562463 0 C. Fox 7 1562587 "vichyssoise" Wow, you're right! I knew there was a double 's' in there somewhere! I feel so much smarter now! Thu Apr 18 20:28:27 -0700 2002 1562463 0 Ann McL 1 1562231 The cepes remind me- I have ongoing debates with people who refuse to believe me that the champagne Moet is actually MO-ET, not MO-AY. I heard/read this somewhere. Everyone thinks the French would leave off the last T sound, and I've been researching this online for a long time and found nothing. Can anyone confirm? Tue Apr 16 15:00:43 -0700 2002 1562181 0 cypressstylepie 2 1562241 The reason it is Mo-et and not Mo-ay is b/c it's a name, a proper noun. For names you pronounce all the letters. A friend and I used to make fun of his lit prof who insisted on pronouncing Marguerite Duras with the "s" and we thought we were so cool. Until we found out it is Duras with an "s" b/c it's a name. If Moet were not a proper noun, then it would be Mo-ay. Tue Apr 16 15:36:20 -0700 2002 1562231 0 LisaLou 3 1562257 Sorry, the proper noun distinction rule is wrong. Ts, Ds and Ss at the end of words and preceded by vowels in French proper names are usually (but not always) silent. But you're not entirely wrong, proper foreign (non-French) names might have different pronunciations, as is the case here, when the descendants stick to the original foreign pronunciation. In the case of Moet, the reason for the confusion is that most French people would assume that the "t" was silent and would read the name as MO-AY. Tue Apr 16 17:17:27 -0700 2002 1562241 0 garçon 4 1562315 I stand corrected. It really depends on the vowel proceeding it, you're right. If I'm not mistaken, though, haven't I seen Moet spelled with two dots over the e? (I can remember the names of almost every other accent mark in french, but all I can think of for this one is umlaut). That would be a big clue to french speakers to pronounce the e as a short vowel and pronounce the t, in this case, Mo-et and not Mo-ay. Wed Apr 17 09:11:55 -0700 2002 1562257 0 LisaLou 5 1562344 Actually, that particular mark is a diaeresis, not an umlaut. A diaeresis is placed over the second of two vowels to indicate a syllable break or separate pronunciation, whereas an umlaut just indicates a different pronunciation for a vowel. Wed Apr 17 11:19:39 -0700 2002 1562315 0 Stephanie L. 6 1562455 And, as you probably know, the umlaut is in the German language. In English spelling of the German umlaut, they don't have the umlaut and just add an "e." So, a "u" with an umlaut becomes a "ue" as in Mueller; an "a" with an umlaut become "ae as in Kraemer, etc. But, back to the Moet, it is pronounced Mo-et and I was told correctly at my brother's wedding several years ago. One of the friends of his mother-in-law gave a supply of Moet champagne as the reception beverage. They own the Moet-Chandon winery (is it called a winery?). Thu Apr 18 00:38:53 -0700 2002 1562344 0 kc girl 3 1563028 Don't be fooled by the "tréma," or diaeresis over the e in the name Moët. The word is pronounced in one syllable [mwet], not mo-et, in two. Usually in French the tréma separates two contiguous vowels into two separate syllables, but here it is an exception where the accent helps to avoid the usual pronunciation of the the letter combination "oe" as (approximately)the sound of "oo" in English "good." Memory clue for this pronunciation: "Moët is wet." Fri Oct 14 23:02:58 -0700 2005 1562241 0 R. L. Mazzola 2 1562249 It is Pronounced MO-ET and while LisaLou had a valid explanation it is actually because the Moet Family, like most in Champagne ( Krug, Roederer, et al) are of German decent. I have sold this product in the past (I work for a wine distributor) and it was hammered into us rather forcefully. Tue Apr 16 16:16:15 -0700 2002 1562231 0 Winemark 1 1562282 Why not humble the foolish fussbudget additionally by pointing out that in English, and all over the world, the scientific name for the mushroom is boletus edulis. Tue Apr 16 22:41:31 -0700 2002 1562181 0 zora 1 1562546 Course, you could really mess with the dude and point out that in Italy it's pronounced "POR-CHEE-NEE". Thu Apr 18 15:45:18 -0700 2002 1562181 0 GG Mora