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benhall.1 wrote: ↑Mon Nov 14, 2022 2:42 am The trouble is, it was an American reporter, and I just had to switch it off. I just couldn't stand one more time (there were plenty) of listening to her mispronounce the word "monarch". What's so difficult about that word? Ugh!

How is it a mispronunciation?

kkrell wrote: ↑Mon Nov 14, 2022 8:20 am

benhall.1 wrote: ↑Mon Nov 14, 2022 2:42 am I was just drawn to a piece on msn about an incident with King Charles and a little blind kid at the memorial service yesterday. The trouble is, it was an American reporter, and I just had to switch it off. I just couldn't stand one more time (there were plenty) of listening to her mispronounce the word "monarch". What's so difficult about that word? Ugh!

Like the butterfly, right?

That would be the word. In this case, of course, the reporter meant the King, not a butterfly.

Nanohedron wrote: ↑Mon Nov 14, 2022 12:37 pm

benhall.1 wrote: ↑Mon Nov 14, 2022 2:42 am The trouble is, it was an American reporter, and I just had to switch it off. I just couldn't stand one more time (there were plenty) of listening to her mispronounce the word "monarch". What's so difficult about that word? Ugh!

How is it a mispronunciation?

She was saying the word with the stress on the second syllable and a long "ahh" sound - kind of like "mon-AHHk". Ugh! Horrible! It should be "MON-uk"; actually, very nearly "MON-'k".

benhall.1 wrote: ↑Mon Nov 14, 2022 3:00 pm She was saying the word with the stress on the second syllable and a long "ahh" sound - kind of like "mon-AHHk". Ugh! Horrible! It should be "MON-uk"; actually, very nearly "MON-'k".

Here we pronounce it more like MON-ark. We're odd that way.

I think monarch is a strange word, very french and technical so it doesn't surprise me that a US presenter leans in pronunciation, even if it comes across as a guillotine shaped bite. I suppose using the word King is just too close to "The Scottish Play" for modern sensibilities, would cause a reporter meltdown or similar.

GreenWood wrote: ↑Tue Nov 15, 2022 10:26 am I think monarch is a strange word, very french and technical so it doesn't surprise me that a US presenter leans in pronunciation, even if it comes across as a guillotine shaped bite. I suppose using the word King is just too close to "The Scottish Play" for modern sensibilities, would cause a reporter meltdown or similar.

I must admit I don't normally view the word "monarch" as being French at all. I've always thought that it came directly from Latin. I've just checked and most sources on the internet, as far as I can see, do say that it comes directly from Latin with a few saying that it comes both from medieval French and directly from Latin. I mean, just from the look of the word, it clearly comes from the Greek (it does), but it must have come to English via Latin or French or, perhaps, both.

Tunborough wrote: ↑Tue Nov 15, 2022 8:52 am

benhall.1 wrote: ↑Mon Nov 14, 2022 3:00 pm She was saying the word with the stress on the second syllable and a long "ahh" sound - kind of like "mon-AHHk". Ugh! Horrible! It should be "MON-uk"; actually, very nearly "MON-'k".

Here we pronounce it more like MON-ark. We're odd that way.

True.

It just occurred to me that maybe she got stuck on the words "monarchical" or "monarchic", and took it from there. We tend to expect a certain amount of professional convention from our newsfolk when it comes to English pronunciation, but I've seen some doozies. "Mon-ARCH" looks like some kind of hypercorrection to me, but it's one I've never encountered before. I wouldn't consider it particularly Left Pond at all, but rather a personal idiosyncrasy.

Nanohedron wrote: ↑Tue Nov 15, 2022 3:19 pm

Tunborough wrote: ↑Tue Nov 15, 2022 8:52 am

benhall.1 wrote: ↑Mon Nov 14, 2022 3:00 pm She was saying the word with the stress on the second syllable and a long "ahh" sound - kind of like "mon-AHHk". Ugh! Horrible! It should be "MON-uk"; actually, very nearly "MON-'k".

Here we pronounce it more like MON-ark. We're odd that way.

True.

It just occurred to me that maybe she got stuck on the words "monarchical" or "monarchic", and took it from there. We tend to expect a certain amount of professional convention from our newsfolk when it comes to English pronunciation, but I've seen some doozies. "Mon-ARCH" looks like some kind of hypercorrection to me, but it's one I've never encountered before. I wouldn't consider it particularly Left Pond at all, but rather a personal idiosyncrasy.

Fair enough. Because the woman reporter was otherwise well-spoken, but with a pronounced American accent, I took it to be an American thing.

To me mon-urk and mon-urky work, but not so much mon-urkical which would be mon-arkical ?

The word is latin derived and shared with french, the only way I found to guess influence was by ngram



Which gives French the lead I think, as well as higher current usage than English ? I suppose in UK "royalty" maybe makes up the modern difference. The french do pronounce it with a hard "a".

Ngram viewer

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?c ... moothing=3

I do draw a distinction between "monarchy" and "royalty", though. While the latter means that micro-class above aristocracy, the former literally, if roughly, means in the Greek "one rule". By definition only one person at a time can be a monarch, so for me a monarchy is a given ship of state centered on the throne du jour. Also, "monarch" doesn't necessarily imply they ascended the throne as a royal.

GreenWood wrote: Which gives French the lead I think

No, I don't think that "gives the French the lead" - not in terms of where the word comes from in English. It comes, ultimately, from the Greek, via Latin, with, in a minority of opinions, as far as one can tell, a small amount of influence from the French. However, since the word was used from Roman times in Britain, I think we can discount the French influence.

Tunborough wrote: ↑Tue Nov 15, 2022 8:52 amHere we pronounce it more like MON-ark. We're odd that way.

MON-urk in parts of Northern England.

Not sure I heard the adjectival forms in conversation. I am surprised that anyone would be more familiar with them.

david_h wrote: ↑Wed Nov 16, 2022 11:58 amNot sure I heard the adjectival forms in conversation.

I would agree that those forms tend to be used far, far more in writing. But that being the case:

david_h wrote:I am surprised that anyone would be more familiar with them.

I don't see why. Knowing an inkhorn word doesn't mean one uses it in day-to-day conversation, just as its absence in workaday speech doesn't mean one doesn't know it; its real value is in not being caught up short while reading, although I think that if one knows "monarch" - most of us do - something like "monarchic" shouldn't pose a barrier at first encounter.

I wouldn't care to utter the word aloud, myself, except to sound faux-posh on purpose. Ben, do you have a link to that news segment? I'd like to hear the reporter's pronunciation, but so far can't find anything with her in it; just a bunch of gentle murmuring and atmospheric krummhorns, or whatever they are.

Nanohedron wrote: ↑Wed Nov 16, 2022 1:04 pm Ben, do you have a link to that news segment? I'd like to hear the reporter's pronunciation, but so far can't find anything with her in it; just a bunch of gentle murmuring and atmospheric krummhorns, or whatever they are.

Hmmm .. I didn't save it. I probably should have or linked to it, or something.

benhall.1 wrote: ↑Wed Nov 16, 2022 3:05 pm

Nanohedron wrote: ↑Wed Nov 16, 2022 1:04 pm Ben, do you have a link to that news segment? I'd like to hear the reporter's pronunciation, but so far can't find anything with her in it; just a bunch of gentle murmuring and atmospheric krummhorns, or whatever they are.

Hmmm .. I didn't save it. I probably should have or linked to it, or something.

I've just tried to find it. It was supposedly commentary on how different the body language was between that of King Charles and that of the Queen Consort when the eggs were thrown the other day. I can't find it now ...