I've always said "cham" as in "champion".

Messieurs Merriam and Webster agree. http://www.merriam-webster.com/audio.php?file=cham...

Just please don't say "CHAMP-fer"!

As in "Champ fer 'da day!"?

Agree with mgb. Sham-fer. Architects don't always get it right. They persist in pronouncing soffit "suffeat".

I say Cham-fer as in champion.

Or I say "the little corner cut-off thingy".

"sham-fer" gets my vote as a British ex-pat

Actually I do pronounce 'chamfer' with a 'p', but then I also pronounce 'closet' with an 'n' and 'album' with a second 'l', which totally drives my wife crazy, however, she pronounces 'Washington' with an 'r' so I consider us even

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To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

It's always been "sham-fer" for me. (I've never heard it pronounced with the hard "tch" as in "tcham-fer".)

@JohnRBaker:
I can understand most of your examples, but "closet" with an "n"?
Clonset? Closent?

http://julianh72.blogspot.com

'Closent', with an 'n'...

John R. Baker, P.E.
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To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

JohnRBaker - I've always insisted that if there can be silent letters there's nothing to stop the existence of invisible letters (symmetry and all that). Of course that state north of my home state of Oregon (Ory-gun) is pronounced with the invisible 'r' being fully present. My mom's family has been in the Oregon country, later Warshington, since 1836. My dad at least grew up there. And they both pronounce it Warshington. With that kind of history, how could I come to any other conclusion?

For me it has always been -- sham(x)fer (x = almost a hint of "p")

It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. (Sherlock Holmes - A Scandal in Bohemia.)

That would be "shampher"? I think that is what some of us meant by "sham-fer".

Ch as in champion, choose, challenge, etc.

Oh my goodness. I first heard that word from an engineer who pronounced it kamfer. I've always done the same...

Thank you mgb0002. You sent me to Webster's where I learned the truth. Of course, now I have 35 years of embarrassment upon which to dwell and rue**.

**The structure of this phrase exemplifies strict adherence to a particular grammar rule regarding prepositions at the end of sentences. Like Winston Churchill, that is a practice up with which I will not put.

Best to you,

Goober Dave

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I pronounce it the same way as I pronounce 'Worcestershire' in Worcestershire Sauce. In other words, a random approximation of some portion of the letters that are there, along with some random ones not there.

Champion for me. Let's not discuss the pronunciation of fillets until this one is settled.

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."

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Or any word with a silent "p", as in "bath".

- Steve

TenPenny, good luck then if you ever need to try and ask directions to Loughborough.

(Nether "Logey Berogy" or "Low Borrow" are correct FYI.)

sham-fa

The "r" not being explicitly pronounced.

- Steve

@Kenat - :roar

Chamfer? Cham(p) for me too. (I'm a Brit who's been around too many Americans for too many years.)

For KENAT, I've always pronounced it 'Loufburrow', but then I already know how to get there, having been several times.

And for davidbeach, while my wife was born in Michigan, she did grow-up in Warshington.

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To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

I'm from Texas, I just pronounce it CHAM-FER. As in "whut's that big red button over thare FER?"

So while I'm not in a position to defend my pronunciation, oy 'ave no idear why some blokes delete, substitute, or add extrar lettahs. :)

Quit cutting corners. It's cham-fur.

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

"TenPenny, good luck then if you ever need to try and ask directions to Loughborough."

I'll just ask my good friend Cholmondeley to help me out...

Loughborough isn't that far from Leicester.

- Steve

@TenPenny:

Would that be Cholmondeley Featherstonehaugh from Mousehole, or Cholmondeley St. John-Menzies from Youghall?

(Pronounced "Chumley Fanshaw from Mowzell" and "Chumley Sinjun-Mingus from Yawl" respectively)

http://julianh72.blogspot.com

It's spelt Raymond Luxury Yacht, but it's pronounced Throat Warbler Mangrove.

Quote (SomptingGuy)

Loughborough isn't that far from Leicester.

And they produce some really great cheese

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To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

always pronounced it 'Loufburrow'

I have a colleague from that school... she never seemed amused when I called it "low-brow" (as in cro-mag), but "loogahbarooogah" occasionally got a smile.

That's somewhere between Puyallup and Oconomowoc, right?

I been to Puyallup.

Old George Carlin line:

Last name please?

Smith

Can you spell that for me?

Xghmtf -- but they're all silent.

Best to you,

Goober Dave

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There is a major road near my place called "Troughton Road". I always pronounced it "Trow-tun" (rhymes with "now"), but listening to the traffic reports on the radio, I also sometimes hear it called "Troff-tun" and "Troo-tun" Road. My first reaction was "What the?! That can't be right?!", but then I realised there are "trough" and "through" to use as precedents.

I guess unless the descendants of the original Mr Troughton come forward (I assume it was named after an early land-owner or explorer), we will never know!

http://julianh72.blogspot.com

I would pronounce that "Traw-tun", as I know a man named Broughton, and that's the way he says it.

Thanks a lot, hokie66 - you've made my dilemma worse, not better!

http://julianh72.blogspot.com

Without the traffic reports I would never know that Tulare County in California was pronounced 'too-larry'.

Terry
KI6FCI

How else would you pronounce Tulare? May be that I can't think of any other way because I was hearing it before I could have read it, but I just can't see any other way of parsing it.

If I were to see Tulare without hearing it, I would guess too-lare where lare rhymes with bare

I've always pronounced it with the "ch" as in champion. This is also the only pronunciation shown in my (American) dictionary. So there.

chamfer is a French word so at a guess, it would be the same as champagne, champignon, chamois i.e. sham fur

I've been saying luger bo ru gah for so long, I can't remember how I used to pronounce Loughborough: probably luff bruh

sham wow

----------------------------------------

The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which depends on a feature that isn't included in this version of Windows.

"Pasta" is an Italian word, but the American pronunciation is nothing like the Italian pronunciation. Mind you, the same can be said for the word "Italian" too.

And "Mazda" - nothing like the Japanese pronunciation (won't find it in a dictionary though as it's a proper noun).

- Steve

Rapala

Mazda is the Persian version of Japanese Matsuda. It is just a sound translation from Persian to Japanese. Not everything Japanese is pronounced the same elsewhere. Toyota is still called Toyoda in Japan.

The Chinese and Japanese use a lot of sound translations (there may be a proper word for this but that is what I call it). Things that sound the same but have a different meaning. eg US (America) is called mei guo (pretty country). UK (England) is called ing guo (hero country). Russia is called er guo (goose or hungry country). Doesn't mean US is pretty or UK has lots of heroes or that everyone in Russia does the goose step or is always hungry but that is how the sounds go.

Leicester in MA is Lester--figure that one out!!!

chicopee - that would be because it's named after the original Leicester in Leicestershire, England.

Quote (xwb)

Toyota is still called Toyoda in Japan.

Could simply be a way of showing respect for the founder of the company, Kiichiro Toyoda.

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To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

They apparently didn't include the word 'chamfer' in any of their surveys:

http://www.businessinsider.com/22-maps-that-show-t...

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To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

But we should!

I'll start.

From the Gulf Coast. I say "sham-fer".

I'd say the survey is pretty accurate too, as I say pecan as "pick-AHN".

"CHAM-fur" - because nobody ever said it out loud before I'd read it and pronounced it that way in my head. Didn't even think about it being French, just (yet) another engineering term I had not heard of before.

Also, "FILL-it" - because that's how it was pronouned to me. I must confess that I thought my then-coworker was a bit of an idiot when he pronounced it "fil-A". It's not a chicken sandwich.

Sham-fur, but I learned that word in 7th grade wood shop, and was taking French at the same time.

Re: Mazda. We once had a Japanese foreign exchange student stay with us for a summer as part of an English immersion program. One day while driving around, she saw a Mazda RX7 sports car on the road. She commented on how cute she thought it was and inquired as to the make. I was a little perplexed and explained that it was a Japanese brand "Mazda" (pronounced like in Mama, not with the first A sounding like a sheep bleat as the Canadians say it). She claimed to have never heard of it. When we got close enough for her to read the badge, she exclaimed "Oh, Mah-Zu-Dah!, yes this is a very popular car". I guess that even for languages that are mono-ethnic, there are still quirks.

"Will work for (the memory of) salami"

Mazda is ma tsu da pronounced correctly mat su da- Americanisation affects Japanese too so they say it Mazda- for them ma zu da.

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Mucho discussion, but nobody has explained the septic pronunciations of "pasta" or "italian" yet.

- Steve

You can't resist, can you, SG?

Tongue firmly in cheek. No crosses to bear.

My old boss was an Italian chap, working in Chicago. When asked what dressing he wanted on his salad, he'd wink at me and ask for eye-talian.

- Steve

On the funny side, I first learned the word in an autocad class taught by an Asian instructor who pronounced it "CHAYME-FUH" ... so that's what I still hear in my head.

On the serious side, I RARELY hear it pronounced (in the US) as "shamfer".

But if you do, that's OK, I guess. And yes, it's probably the "correct" way to say it.

However, here's something to keep in mind ...

If you're dealing with contractors and/or plant managers, etc and you're going to discuss this with them ...
99.44% are going to say CHAM (as in champion).

If you say SHAM..., you're going to look like a putz.

Just like the word tournament - only a minority truly pronounce it correctly with the vast majority of Americans saying "turn-a-ment"

You can say it correctly if you'd like, just be prepared to be taken as a pompous egotistical arrogant know-it-all who thinks they're superior by using the technically correct pronunciation of the word - that is, when dealing with the end user.

In the office, to quote the 1980s poet and philosopher, Humpty Hump, "do whatcha like."