Australian pronouciation:

val-ay
fill-et
Chevy
aluminIum!

alexis

Let's hear it for varlet parking.

Good one Bill

valet and ballet both pronounced with the final vowel being the name of the first letter of the alphabet.

fillet as fill it.

Bingley

Bridget wrote:
I am British.

I say "vall-ay"
I say "fill-it"
I say "fill-ay mignon", but in this case I (think I) spell it 'filet'. So as far as I'm concerned it's a separate word, although cognate>>>>>

Unsurprisingly, as a Brit living in Sydney, Australia, I entirely concur.

What about "herbs"? I seem to remember a board where we discussed whether the h is aspirated or not. I assume that it comes down to the same USn/Can. v the rest divide??
jj

I assume that it comes down to the same USn/Can. v the rest divide??

Careful there, johnjohn! When was the last time you heard a USn saying "leff-tenant"? We don't pronounce everything like them just because they're big and sell us a lot of movies!

Herbs [charades-sounds-like-emoticon] "erbs". But it regains the "h" when I say "herbal".

As Bridget and wofa (sort of) said..."The poll is heavily in favour of "vall-ay" (or even "val-lay") over "vall-et"."

Are you there NicholasW? - your authoritative input is required please. What do upper class Brits say? What did they say early last century?

stales

fwiw dept. - OED and W3 both have 'val it' and 'val ay', with 'val it' listed first. looks like it is U vs. non-U.

()

"The poll is heavily in favour of "vall-ay" (or even "val-lay") over "vall-et"."

At the risk of dragging old meat back to the table (since my servant’s suddenly condescended to open this thread for me!), I am going to stick my knife in as well.

I’m with Max, as corroborated by tsuwm, in that it’s a U/nonU divide, but I think there is also another important process going on which is often seen in language during a period of social upheaval – first, my own pronunciation.

Valet: pr val’it
(and conversely Dr Bill, would you ever hear of a car vallaying service? – certainly not on this side of the pond I think!)

Fillet: pr fill’it
(as already noted, a fish would never be described as other than fill’it’id)

(Linguistic background: raised in Kent, attended private boarding school for High School years, so exposed to definite U-phemisms in a conscious learning pattern)


As caramia notes, she’s “had the 'fillet' discussion with one of the board's antistoecon-inclined ayleurs before, and he insisted that calling them "fill-AYs" was a ridiculously pretentious nod to its french roots...” Indeed I do, and this process is known linguistically as hypercorrection – it is seen in earlier periods of English formation, particularly the influx (hah) of Latinate terms and spellings in the 17th century. In this particular kind of example it’s in charming contrast to the normal American pattern of reducing the language to simpler forms (to produce a closer congruence between the spoken and the written modes, as per the nostrum of dear old Webster). It undoubtedly stems from a population first encountering a new term as a direct loan word in say a restaurant (the French is, as Bridget observed, “a separate word, although cognate” and clearly is “fill’ay meen’yong”). This socially mobile population then applies this knowledge and uses a grand sounding term to a cut of meat when that luxurious cut becomes more widely available, in a form of socially-motivated imitation. The term was otherwise Anglicised long ago into fill’it, and a directly analogous process has occurred with valet. Sure, it was a French loan word originally, but just try applying French pronunciation to the noun form and you will immediately feel why it was Anglicised ages ago: valet’ing the car demands the enunciation of the t sound that would othwise seem awkward and ugly as observed to Bill above.

It’s also worth noting the characteristic slide from the original vowel ‘eh’ before the t, into a more relaxed mouth-position ‘ih’, which ends up becoming almost a schwa: this is the assimilation of the loan word into the vocalization range of the mother tongue. For a characteristic pointer to this difference between native French and English patterns try this example: say a simple English phrase or word, such as ‘superb’, then repeat it trying to allow your mouth to keep almost closed. The chances are you may sound like you come from Birmingham, but it is easy enough to sound it out still. Now repeat with a French word or phrase (in our example ‘superbe’ would be good) – the chances are that you can identify your mouth needing to be stretched over a wider range of movements to achieve a reasonable French vocalization.

I'm Northern British with hints of furrin travel:
I think this is 95% YART but heregoes:

vallay (but a car is valetted)
fillet (I never could never bring myself to order a fish thingy in McDonalds as I'm sure that they want me to say "filley of fish" which sounds to me like a young female horse)
markwis, a marquee is a big tent
herb - as Eddie Izzard said "pronounced with an "h" at the the beginning because there is an "h" at the beginning"

Didn't someone (maybe Rubrick?) have the view that words that were anglicised more than a hundred year's ago (like fillet) generally stayed the same in British English. Words that were adopted more recently tended not to be anglicised. I was wondering if we'd always kept expressions such as fau paux and deja voux in their native language.

By the way Mav, I'm definitely non-U
I have been heard to say "serviette" rather than "napkin"
Four-head - not forrid
Hankerchief not hankerchiff

Here's a quote from an article by William Livingstone for those who missed previous U-NonU discussions:

Professor Ross labeled certain pronunciations as U (for upper class) or Non-U (for not upper class). For example, U-speakers pronounce the word "forehead" to rhyme with "torrid." Only the Non-U would pronounce it as "four-head." Similarly in U-speech the last syllable of the word "handkerchief" is pronounced to rhyme with "stiff," and pronouncing it to rhyme with "beef" would reveal the speaker’s lowly Non-U origins.

Certain vocabulary choices also served as class markers at mid-century in England. Upper-class speakers called a dinner napkin a "napkin," but insecure lower or middle-class speakers who wished to move up a rung or two on the social ladder might choose a fancier word and call it a "serviette."

Although I’ve never heard an American utter the word "serviette," the same kind of linguistic social climbing exists in the United States. It was described (and condemned) by Paul Fussell in his book Class (1983), subtitled "A Guide Through the American Status System." Fussell wrote of the fondness of middle-class Americans for euphemisms and for polysyllabic words that "assist social yearnings toward pomposity." They say "gratuity" instead of "tip" and "pass away" instead of "die." In the speech of such people "selling" becomes "retailing," which then becomes "merchandising." They expect extra social credit for saying "utilize" instead of "use," for "medication" instead of "medicine," for "purchase" instead of "buy," and especially for saying "individuals" instead of "people."

http://www.texaco.com/support/opera/docs/speak0400.html

Aside: On the subject of cultural differences, rather bigger than herb and 'erb here's an interesting article that I found for Dr Bill, while searching for U and non U. It is a subject that I only learnt about recently while playing a game of Trivial Pursuit. The question was "what proportion of North Americans were circumcised in 1998?". We guessed at 5% of males (or whatever the proportion of those religions for which it is prefered and were more than astounded that the result was 80% (especially since 52% would have been female, I assume that the editors (where are they?) missed this small fact).http://www.cirp.org/library/general/morgan/