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OP
old hand
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Alrighty then.......so why is "ballet" universally "bal-ay"?
It's looking to me that Rafferty's Rules apply to this whole question.....
In Oz we eat "fillay minyon" in flash restaurants, but we "fil-et" the fish we catch. The few of us that are inclined to do so attend the "bal-ay". A batman in private service is known as a "val-ay" - just like the guy from the "val-aying" company that cleans your car.
Seems that only resident Poms and their near neighbours use "val-et" for the latter.
stales
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
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I was surprised the first time I heard someone pronounce ballet with the emphasis on the first syllable instead of the second (and she was a ballet dancer!). My ear has since learned to accept either pronunciation.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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I have to listen very carefully when Brits say "ballet." It can easily be mistaken for "belly" to my ear, and more than once I've been startled to learn about a "bellydancer" doing Swan Lake.
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newbie
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newbie
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How do you-all pronounce FLAN (the fruit/custard tart)?
Well here in SA we would say "flan" for the fruity dessert. I might say "flahn" to refer to the Spanish dessert (what most English speakers call creme caramel) but even that is bordering on the pretentious. Maybe your waitron (cringe) had heard someone speak of the latter and assumed that it was the sophisticated pronunciation of the former.
It is my experience that people waiting tables (especially in SA where it is not seen as a real job) are pathetically clueless about food and certainly not up to the challenges of the words on their menus.
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Perhaps we could hear from more non-USns? I can't talk for the whole of South Africa but I certainly say "fillet". I would certainly never dream of saying "the fish should be fill-ay-ed before cooking" or "fill-ay-s of plaice". But I am by no means in the majority. Waiters and I are engaged in a battle over this with neither side prepared to yield. The waiter will inform me that the special is "fill-ay in a pepper sauce" and I will obstinately and pointedly refer to the "fillet" even though I have no intention of ordering it. In the SA context I think "fill-ay" is a case of misguided pretentiousness which actually exposes the speaker's lack of knowledge. Remembering that a large proportion of our population do not speak English (or the local variant!) as a first language and that there is a certain cachet (yes, I do say "cash-ay") to being fluent in it, it is understandable that some people get seduced into what sounds like the posh way of saying something. Especially when they hear it on all the imported TV shows. And, I also believe that one says "sorbet" and not "sorb-ay". As you can imagine, when I leave a restaurant most waiters believe that I live up to my AWAD username. As, no doubt, will the vast majority of AWADtalkers! 
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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...a case of misguided pretentiousness As opposed to the _______ pretensiousness? 
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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and more than once I've been startled to learn about a "bellydancer" doing Swan Lake.
It's great when they do it well. The control they have over their stomach muscles is tremendous. I saw one dancer, Nerina Farouk el Chaicoph Sheikh, do the entire dance of the cygnets by herself and that included playing the clarinet with her belly-button and the bassoon with her cleavage! You know, pom-pom, pom-pom, pom-pom ...
Mind-blowing, truly mind-blowing.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jul 2000
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I was always impressed by her use of the slide trombone. (What kind of a bone was that?)
Which reminds me of the two rubes who were watching a Sousa symphony and noticed the trombonist. One turned to the other and said, "It's gotta be a trick. He ain't really swallowin' that."
TEd
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addict
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addict
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Well here in SA we would say "flan" for the fruity dessert. I might say "flahn" to refer to the Spanish dessert
The right way to say the name of the custard desert is "flahn" - I rarely hear it pronounced any other way, and it sounds goofy to me to say it with the flatter "a" sound - but I spend a lot of my time speaking and working in Spanish, where you just couldn't say it "flan" - so maybe my ear just automatically hears it that way - or maybe I need to add another hyphen+clause to this sentence - or maybe not.
But what is the fruity dessert of the same name? Never done heard talk of sich a t'ing.
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old hand
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OP
old hand
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> there is a certain cachet (yes, I do say "cash-ay")
Delicious humour P!!
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