Thursday, February 24, 2011

Margarine

Why do we use a soft g when saying margarine? I cannot think of another instance in English--or any other language, multi-lingual as I am (that's a joke)--where the letter g followed by an a is pronounced as a j. Gadfly, Maragaret, gardern, gas, gatto, gallon, garbage...you get the idea. Shouldn't it be spelled margerine?

Have you encountered anyone whose pronunciation of warm rhymes with farm? It is hilarious.
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5 comments:

  1. LA GUERA SALSERAFebruary 24, 2011 at 3:53 PM

    Not the soft g thing again.

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  2. davyFebruary 25, 2011 at 9:08 AM

    French origin to the pronunciation of a
    Greek word, according to Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margarine

    ReplyDelete
  3. kelly anneFebruary 25, 2011 at 10:02 PM

    because mar-GAR-ine sounds like something you should throw away, not spread on toast.

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  4. sojayFebruary 27, 2011 at 8:19 PM

    Hahaha--that is funny kelly!

    If you look at butteryspreads.org, yes, it is really a .org, the "lustrous pearly drops" --I must confess I have never looked at margarine in that way--reminded the inventor of the Greek word for pearls, margarites. Don't tell me they pronounced that marJERites. It is the ridiculous English mispronunciatio of perfectly reasonable words.

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  5. MeganMarch 1, 2011 at 11:25 AM

    Hahaha Sonja! Your blog always cracks me up. (:

    ReplyDelete

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