Quote:
Originally posted by greatwhitenorthchick
I understand what you are saying, but what I don't understand is why we think it is pretentious when someone pronounces a french word the way it is supposed to be pronounced in french (leaving aside how people feel about the french in general).
I get confused by the Americanization of french words because in Canada sometimes we pronounce them more closely to the french. For example, I pronounce "foyer" as "foyay" because that is how I learned the word (in English) and people here actually say foyerrr. It sounds funny.
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I agree as to actual french words, but homage is not, as far as I can tell (and I have done a little research) actually taken from modern french (hommage) but is from middle english/anglo-french. Yes, the words have the same meanig and differ only by an M, and that will be a source of confusion for french speakers, but the vast majority of americans aren't, and homage has been an english word with an english pronunciation different from the french for centuries.
I think it's pretentious b/c I think that the reason that oh-mahz has been adopted by some is that they think it shows they are intellectual/high class/funny/whatever when they pronounce "french" words as they would be in french. Often it's correct to use the french, this case it isn't.
The big pronunciation mess in america is with place names from the french (and spanish and everything else)--americanized except when they aren't.
