In reply to:

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And, as eta so ably demonstrated, we would all be wrong. Being how as it's from an Indian language it's an aspirated unvoiced bilabial plosive and not an unvoiced labio-dental fricative.

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I never could wrap my neuron around all that stuff, but, even though there is no "ph" of any sort in the name of the city in Rajasthan, here's a page devoted entirely to the Hindi ph(s)
http://maxqnzs.com/ph.html

P.S. That's a native speaker, not me.

re:--And, as eta so ably demonstrated, we would all be wrong. Being how as it's from an Indian language it's an aspirated unvoiced bilabial plosive and not an unvoiced labio-dental fricative.

Yeah, but... i did point out that 'hobson-jobson' was also a factor. (only i forgot the term hobsom-jobsom) and just pointed out "there is a tendency to make 'foriegn words' into more english friendly words".

and then transposing dhp (a sound, no doubt i could learn to make) inot a d-ph -a sound i already know how to make, is not unusual. no matter what spelling i encountered, i suspect i would say jod-fur--

if my audience was mostly desi, i would recognize that i was saying it wrong, but i don't know, (unless i was addressing a delegation from the city of Jodhpur) that i would make the effort to learn to say the city name differently than the clothing name.

(and i encounter people all the time who fail to realize the NY street, and texas city have different names--even if they are spelled the same way... )

Hobson-jobson ism has mangle many names over the ages.. its not just english speakers that engage in it.
(see www.engrish.com)

I have never heard anyone pronounce it with an F.

and i have never heard it any way but jodphur (jod-fur's)!

i was (since when, i don't know, but for along time) aware that the word was an indian(hindi?) one.. and even aware it was a city.. but if presented with a map of india, and major cities marked.. i don't know that i could correctly label one Jodhpur.. but i think (-really more of WAG-) that its in the north west..sort of corner..

heh.

I didn't know that it was an Indian city, I guess, until this discussion.

and i have never heard it any way but jodphur (jod-fur's)!

Well, now I'm curious whether the "jodfurs" pronunciation is regional. I've never heard of jodhpurs with an "eff" sound, and New York isn't all that far from Michigan. People from areas surrounding New York: how are you used to hearing this word pronounced?

I'm with you, Ann. Until this thread, I never even thought of it, although I can see how the hp could migrate into the more familiar ph. Interesting.

Me, too. I pronounce it with your regular old /p/. But I'm from a lot of places so I don't fit the statistical model.

In reply to:

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and then transposing dhp (a sound, no doubt i could learn to make)

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Actually, you already do. In my Hindi textbooks, the sound is described as being analagous to that produced in the phrase and how.

As for "if my audience was mostly desi," I wouldn't worry about that too much. Deis differ on how to say that word itself. Some say "deshi", others "desi". There's nothing particularly difficult about the name of Jodhpur. Just aspirate the d (which is dental, not retroflex), and you'll be pretty much on the money.

Do you-all mean to tell me that you pronounce it "jod-pers"??? That is really weird, to me: I have never heard it as anything but jod-furs.

As to money, I found in the book where a daughter got "an allowance of a lakh (1,00,000) of rupees a year." And another place, where "the wedding preparations--costing Rs 3,50,000 ...". I don't care what they are of: how many is 3,50,000?

(Heh heh--I am waiting to get slapped by whomever I accused of misspelling jodhpurs; but they can't, yet, 'cause then I'll know who wrote that definition!)

Here's a question I asked on your behalf in a forum frequented by speakers of Indian English:

In reply to:

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Is this a simple case of a leading zero being omitted, so that 3,50,000 is what would be written elsewhere as 3,050,000? Remember, she is not concerned with what the units are, she is trying to understand how many they are. Thanks.

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Here's the thread in which I posed that question:
http://snipurl.com/g7nc-mq42

As a kid, I used to see it written jodphur about as often as jodhpur, but it was always pronounced jodper, never jodfer. fwiw.

yuhp.

As a yuthd I allus saw it written jodhpurs and pronounced as JOD-pers or JOD-pahs.

Thanks. Wow, and here I'd been thinking that numbers were the same pretty much everywhere.

In 1937, when I was about eight, :0 I learned to ride horses and Mother outfitted me with my very own boots and Jod-fahs! A loooong A - we spoke Bostonian after all!
Dad provided the history and the India connection.
One thing about those tan, twill riding pants is that they have no seam on the "inside leg" to chafe the inner thigh and vey comfy overall for riding. De rigueur in for riding in those days!
When the U.S. Army Cavalry had horses (instead of tanks and helicopters) the uniform for officers included jodphurs
Don't know about the enlisted - I am going by an old photo of my Uncle who was an officer in the Cavalry.

Here's a photo of a designer's exageratd version
http://www.style.com/fashionshows/stylehunter/slideshow/062904HUNT?play=false&iphoto=1
for modern versions take a look at a UK site
http://www.discounthorsetack.co.uk/

100,000 in Hindi is one lakh. (A crore, for what it's worth, is 10,000,000.)

So Rs 1,50,000 is one-and-a-half lakhs. Hindi has a specific word for one-and-a-half: dheid (or similar - try transcribing non-existent sounds in English into Roman script.) Also for two-and-a-half: ddhaii.

In the old days ("when I were a lad") a lakh of Rupees was a lot of money and to describe someone as possessing more than a lakh (making him a "lakhpati") was the equivalent to the millionaire of the 1930s in Hollywood-speak.

These days even a crore-pati (pronounced approx: karodpathi) isn't any great shakes. Hardly surprising, given that the Indian Rupee is worth about two cents (American) and the Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Nepali and Sri Lankan versions (most called variants on Rupee or Rupaiyah) seem to be worth even less.

Jodhpur: A city in Rajasthan, probably a centre for polo during the Raj, hence lending its name to the leggings, most conventionally with huge flappy bits around the thighs, used for riding.

Jodphur: an unpronounceable abomination.

cheer

the sunshine warrior

e&oe

shanks, old hand!!

you dasn't get away with a ten-month lacuna in posting without generating some notice. where ya been?

good to see you here, shanks.

Thanks, shanks. For a Spurs fan, you come perilously close to being a decent, helpful human being. Thanks for the movie tips, too.

Welcome home, Ravi!

Hi Ravi!!! Good to have you back, my friend. Now that you are here, don't go anywhere, okay?

Thou tiest thyself up not (knot?) in thine own words. :)

Ra-vee, love: how wonderful to see you again! :-)))

Namaste Ravi, welcome home!