Quote:
Posted by Atticus-Grinch
The two different meanings of forte (quality of strength versus loudness in music notation) have different etymologies (French versus Italian).
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Ahh, I see. You are referring to forte as in "His forte is making deponents cry." I was thinking about music. I was not aware of the discrete etymologies. Thanks for the illumination, Grinch.
BTW, I just checked forte on m-w.com and found the following info that expands a bit on your point. It's an interesting dilemma.
usage In forte we have a word derived from French that in its "strong point" sense has no entirely satisfactory pronunciation. Usage writers have denigrated \'for-"tA\ and \'for-tE\ because they reflect the influence of the Italian-derived forte. Their recommended pronunciation \'fort\, however, does not exactly reflect French either: the French would write the word le fort and would rhyme it with English for. So you can take your choice, knowing that someone somewhere will dislike whichever variant you choose. All are standard, however. In British English \'fo-"tA\ and \'fot\ predominate; \'for-"tA\ and \for-'tA\ are probably the most frequent pronunciations in American English. 
