how do you pronouce "feadog"

Mastersound · Post by **Mastersound** » Sun Feb 03, 2002 10:44 pm

Hi all

Just looking for some info on how to pronounce "Feadog". As a newbie whistle enthusiast I rang the local "Irish" shop here in South Australia to see what whistles they kept in stock. I mentioned I already had a Feadog in D and was wondering what else they had on offer. The mistake I made was that I pronounced Feadog as "fed-dock", which attracted howls of derisive laughter from the guy at the other end of the phone. He composed himself and said it's pronounced "fay-dough" ... like Play Dough. Is that the correct pronunciation? I thought afterwards I should have asked him how he would pronounce "customer service".

He also assured me that the Little Black Whistle is made by Clarke, not Waltons? Do Clarke make a LBW too?

thanks in anticipation!

Rob

BrassBlower · Post by **BrassBlower** » Sun Feb 03, 2002 11:25 pm

The man was probably right, despite his poor delivery of the news. I believe the "g" on the end is silent since it follows a stressed vowel, and therefore it is a so-called "hanging" consonant. Any of you true Irish speakers out there, please confirm or deny this.

Martin Milner · Post by **Martin Milner** » Mon Feb 04, 2002 3:52 am

The LBW (as played by Andrea Corr) is definitely made by Waltons.

The Clarke's Original Whistle is black, with a tasteful gold diamond pattern

StevePower · Post by **StevePower** » Mon Feb 04, 2002 4:39 am

Fah-doe-guh

But, run the doe sound into the guh sound. Emphasise the Fah. The word only has two syllables. Fah-doeguh.

I hope this works!

Steve Power

[ This Message was edited by: StevePower on 2002-02-04 05:41 ]

StevieJ · Post by **StevieJ** » Mon Feb 04, 2002 6:51 am

The word only has two syllables. Fah-doeguh.

Sounds almost Australian. Remember Kylie Minogue?

StevePower · Post by **StevePower** » Mon Feb 04, 2002 9:24 am

Stevie

I was wracking my (tiny) brain to come up with a rhyming word for feadog ('I should be so lucky') - you hit the Kylie on the head! Perfect.

Steve P.

CDon · Post by **CDon** » Mon Feb 04, 2002 9:52 am

On 2002-02-04 05:39, StevePower wrote:
Fah-doe-guh

But, run the doe sound into the guh sound. Emphasise the Fah. The word only has two syllables. Fah-doeguh.

I hope this works!

Steve Power

[ This Message was edited by: StevePower on 2002-02-04 05:41 ]

Sorry to beat this to death, but would that be with a long 'a' or a short 'a' in the Fay syllable?

WyoBadger · Post by **WyoBadger** » Mon Feb 04, 2002 10:07 am

You might want to search the archives to find Dale's guide to Gaelic pronunciations. Or perhaps he'd be kind enough to post it once again. It's simple, elegant, and easy to use. It changed my life.

Just a suggestion.
Tom

StevePower · Post by **StevePower** » Mon Feb 04, 2002 11:00 am

On 2002-02-04 10:52, CDon wrote:
Sorry to beat this to death, but would that be with a long 'a' or a short 'a' in the Fay syllable?

Not Fay but Fah (or Fa) and the 'a' is short, to rhyme with the pah in oompah!

Steve

brownja · Post by **brownja** » Mon Feb 04, 2002 11:37 am

I have a Feadog tutorial on CD, and in the intro, they pronounce it
fuh-doak
or thereabouts.
Cheers,
jb

TnWhistler · Post by **TnWhistler** » Mon Feb 04, 2002 1:46 pm

According to an Irish dictionary I had and have loaned out, it was pronounced

fee-jog

I am not saying I know any better than those who speak it, but that's how the dictionary said it was pronounced.

Tim

StevePower · Post by **StevePower** » Mon Feb 04, 2002 4:26 pm

[quote]
On 2002-02-04 14:46, TnWhistler wrote:
According to an Irish dictionary I had and have loaned out, it was pronounced
fee-jog

I'm not sure where you got your dictionary, but you're probably as well that you loaned it out permanently.

I'm not an Irish speaker but I live in Ireland and I very regularly liaise with Irish speakers who work for the company who Make the Feadog whistle (Barbara and Lynette at Keynote) and who 'improve' it (Cillian O'Briain - a fluent Irish speaker, living in the Irish speaking part of Kerry).

Please be assured that my attempts at pronounciation are as close as you might come to hearing Feadog spoken, in Ireland.

Steve

p.s. I have made a number of translations, out of frienship on this board, and in private e-mails. However, I may not offer to translate again - as some people prefer their dictionary versions and it can be offensive to find that one's efforts - from the 'Waterfront' so to speak, are so easily disregarded.

[ This Message was edited by: StevePower on 2002-02-04 17:29 ]

[ This Message was edited by: StevePower on 2002-02-04 17:38 ]

Post by **Dale** » Mon Feb 04, 2002 6:51 pm

Years ago, I wrote a piece on pronunciation of Gaelic words, as WyoBadger points out above. It was a satirical take on my feeling that the correlation between how Gaelic words are spelled and how we English-speakers THINK they ought to sound is rather poor. I had the piece on chiff & fipple for some time, but it offended a few people who wrote me very kind notes explaining why they took offense. SO, I took it off the site but I occasionally dust it off, at the risk of offending more people. Here it is:

Uncle Dale's Guide to Pronunciation of Gaelic

On the newsgroup rec.music.celtic, someone posted a request for help pronouncing the Gaelic word, Claddagh. This was my posted response:

It's really very simple, like all Gaelic pronunciations:

1. The "Cl" at the beginning is pronounced "Firz'

2. The "a" is actually pronounced like the English phoneme

"arrrgh"

3. "d" is normally pronounced "d", but the double d ("dd") is

pronounced "ger-ger"

4. And, of course, the "agh" is prounounced "eye-loo"

5. So, putting it all together, the word "Claddagh" is

pronounced:

"Firz-arrrgh-ger-ger-eye-loo"

See, simple!!

Dale

P.S. Using these and other rules, "Feadog" would be pronounced "Hahg-lin-poolin-ahr."

[ This Message was edited by: DaleWisely on 2002-02-04 19:54 ]

Jeferson · Post by **Jeferson** » Mon Feb 04, 2002 6:54 pm

And once again, Dale has the answers to all of life's big problems.

No wonder he makes the big bucks.

Jef

Cody · Post by **Cody** » Mon Feb 04, 2002 7:29 pm

Since I have two lab/mastiff dogs I naturally thought it was pronounced FEED-DOG.
Oh well, it's probably Freudian