Americans say these brand names WRONG?! // Pantene, Nike, Nissan?!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ต.ค. 2024
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Americans park their Sportage (sport-edge) in a garage (gar-arge), while Brits park their Sportage (sport-arge) in a garage (gar-edge). Someone make your mind up 😂
Posh Brits from the South say Gah-arrge, southern working class Brits say Garr-idge
it reminds me of how brits pronounce "croissant" the french way, but then pronounce the Ls in "guillotine", and Americans pronounce "guillotine" the French way while pronouncing croissant as "crussant"
In Canada they're usually pronounced Sport-AHJ and gar-AHJ. We tend to pronounce croissant and guillotine the French way. The former are also known as "crescent rolls".
@@marsh8417 The standard (southern English) pronunciation is actually GAR-aj, which working class speakers tend to corrupt to GAR-ij Saying GAR-ahzh (as in mirage) is quite a recent - and somewhat disagreeable - affectation, favoured by the sort of people who like to say plahstic instead of plastic.
@@marsh8417 Posh Brits would say 'Get the Rolls, Parker'. Southern working class Brits would say 'Yus, M'Lady'.
We used to say Marathon now it's pronounced Snickers
@eddisstreet For the next few months it's going to be pronounced Marathon again. 😁😁
@@Poliss95but only from Morrisons, apparently.
You can blame televised sports for that. Just like “Jif” and “Cif”
And according to (mostly) American films and telly, if you put the subtitles on, a horse snickers!
Makes ya wonder what they were thinking when they (probably expensively) changed the name.
Back then absolutely no kid had a clue what a snicker was. All we knew was that it was a lot smaller than a MARATHON, but still the same price!
@@Fred-rj3er
“Make ya wonder what they were thinking”
But I was there at the time, we all knew what they were thinking and why they did it!
Nissan is pronounced Datsun.
Who doesn't know that! 😂
❤ from Northeast England ❤️
🤣
Tis raining Datsun cogs...?!
@@brigidsingleton1596
Oh no, that's so crap it's funny 😂
@@oopsdidItypethatoutloud
It's old - like me !!
It is perhaps worth pointing out the the Korean guy saying "Sportage" speaks English with quite a strong American accent. So, I might expect him to use an American pronunciation.
That's exactly what I was thinking. That clip was a bad example. Of course he will say it the American way when most of his viewers are probably Americans.
I'm guessing in Korea they have some word that has a similar meaning but sounds completely different?
@@katrinabryce
We could use some help from Koreans...
Just tried to use the Korean symbols from wikipedia to find a Korean ad: If I spotted the word at all, it's pronounced like
"Spo-teh-jeh"
(neither British nor US nor French)
-- If they sell that model in Korean market at all...
We are assuming that all Koreans have the same accent here. On reflection, that's a bit racist, though I wouldn't think badly of anyone for it.
that's a contribution to the thread, not directed at Enjay001
Sportage is actually a French word so the British pronunciation is actually correct.
It’s a French word I agree, but there are certain English pronunciation rules. Should we stick to the French rules for borrowed words? Personally I don’t think so. Otherwise you have to say vo-yah-zh instead of voy-idj for the voyage and kou-rAj instead of kAh-ridj for courage. Sticking to English rules for pronouncing words uniformly would have ended up the confusion amongst those who are trying to learn the language and brought some common sense.
Actually, if you listen to google translation of the French word, it is not pronounced spor-targe (soft g), but more like age.
@@bugtracker152 Voyage is an English word with a French derivation. A 'loanword' to be precise. But it's been totally conventionalised so that most English speakers wouldn't even recognise it as a loanword.
Like grenade or circus, but unlike, say 'rendezvous' or 'doppelganger'. The foreign pronunciation would only be appropriate if the word were italicised when written. I'm guessing 'sportage' would be.
Pantene is a Swiss-derived name (its original manufacturers were Roche in Switzerland), so the UK pronunciation is closer to what it should sound like.
Interestingly I found Pantene worded out as Pan-ten it's only the us pronounce it as pan-teen It maybe a Switzerland name but it is a French based word cause you have to factor in the fact that there are 4 official languages in Switzerland and French is one of them.
@@jonathanpatrick8506 Roche are based in Basel, which is a German-speaking part of Switzerland, but yes, the pronunciation should come from French. It's a bit like the croissant thing - US: cross-ont, UK: cwasson (not perfect French, but much closer).
@@DaddyStoat I pronounce 'croissant' 'Inedible'. 😁😁
@@Poliss95I pronounce it "indigestion" !
@@DaddyStoat I'm sure I've even heard "cress aunt" from left-of-the-Atlantic folks. 😄
Thank you for confirming the change in pronunciation of Nestlé. I grew up with adverts pronouncing it one way, then one day they changed it and I was left wondering if I had imagined it.
Nestles milky bar!
I always remember Timotei shampoo and the comedy sketch . "My name is Tim o' Tay and I wash me hair every day"
Being Scottish, I pronounce McDonald’s the same way as I would any Mc/Mac name: Mac…
Edit: corrected the autocorrect of ‘any’ to ‘and’.
Was going to writing something very similar, because yes Mc or Mac both sound like Mac when spoken
Thanks! Yeah I was thinking Mc and Mac are the same thing
Mic vs mac winds me up for obvious reasons. 😂🏴 its fkn mac
Mac just means son of Donald.
Apply Mac principle to any other name.
@@ianmclean6399 wait how did a letter I get in there 🤷♂
So we’re wrong to say pan-ten even though the company has always told us that’s the way to say it. As an originally Swiss word it is likely to be said pan-ten (as the French would). Americans only really get foreign pronunciation right with any frequency on Spanish words. Qué sopresa!
What exactly is a "Swiss" word? Switzerland has four official languages, with four different sets of rules on how to pronounce the orthographic systems they use.
@@JRBWare1942 exactly...
Pantene used to have a grave accent in the UK market (Pantène) which would make our pronunciation more consistent with a French word spelt the same. When I first heard the pronunciation Pan-teen it was in Australia, and I noticed they didn't have the accent on their bottle, this was about 20 years ago. Now, we don't have the accent either!
@@JRBWare1942 Yes, I know. I work in international language training. I used my knowledge to surmise it would be a French-based word. But good for you for knowing the Swiss recognize four languages. Gold star.
You should have finished your comment with "quelle surprise!"
An example of one that has been changing in the UK over recent years is IKEA. When we first became aware of the brand here everyone called it 'Eye -KEE-a', but some years ago the company started referrring to the brand as 'Ick-AY-a' on their TV ads here - which I believe is the correct way it is pronounced in Sweden.
Icky !
I've heard Swedes (when speaking English) say I-kee-a. I think they must know we think it sounds icky otherwise.
@@Sara-jp2nq I much prefer the sound of the Swedish version, and try and use it when I remember.
The first British ad for IKEA pronounced it the way the Swedes do. I think they gave up with us after that and said pronounce it the way you want.
To be fair, most Swedes prefer to speak English anyway, so nobody's going to pay them any attention.
In regards to McDonald's. It's a Scottish name. Pronounced MACdonald.
The 'Mc' is an contraction of MAC, and that pronunciation goes for a lot of other Scottish and Irish names begining with Mc (McIntyre, McIntosh etc) or it can be a silent 'c' as in names such as McGuire, McGuigan etc but in the case of the name McDonald, it's pronounced 'MacDonald'.
Its weird because When Americans sing the old McDonald' nursery rhyme, they pronounce it MacDonald, yet say the same word differently in regards to the burger chain of the same name.
Yeah, and belive they can change the pronunciation of a family name that predates their country by 500 years. Then again they still think they pronounce a Greek goddess' name properly when they aren't even near it.
There are so many variations of the name and each is pronounced slightly different
@@ScottMcLureGet over yourself. I am a Mc and no one has ever called me Mac. And FYI we pronounce Nike correctly, you do not
@@debbiesdeathpile then you are pronouncing it wrong in regards to how your ancestors would have pronounced it. You should be proud of where your name and the clan it comes from, and the least you could do is go e it the respect it deserves by pronouncing it properly as it is meant to be. When you carry a name, especially an old name you should do it justice, and not use a bastardised pronunciation that didn't exist until a fast food chain became popular - and when that burger chain first came along and got given it's name, it WAS pronounced MACDonald's. There are plenty of old radio advertisement recordings that prove this. It's only over the last 60 years or so that people have started saying 'Mc' as they are trying to abbreviate the sound as they say the word, you can say it however you wish to, and it may be your name, but unless you say MACdonald, then you are still 100% wrong in your pronunciation and like I said, it is a Scottish name, the Scotts (and with possible Irish influence) invented it so THEY are correct on how it is pronounced. The correctness of it's pronunciation cannot be changed, nor can it's validity on who invented it and the correct way of saying. Again how YOU say it is up to you and that is completely fine, but still it is incorrect, there is no need for you to attack the commentor above for stating something that is true, no matter how defensive you get on the subject, that won't ever make you right in this instance. You can't bend the truth to suit your own narrative as the truth is the truth. But truth or not, that doesn't stop you or anyone else pronouncing the the Mac sound as MC if they wish, it's just not correct to the origins of the word.
I'm very surprised that when Stanley Kirk Burrell became a singer in the US, that there wasn't confusion like this when they pronounced his stage name, which in regards to it's pronunciation, he probably told them "You can't touch this!".
Also neither the Americans nor the British pronounce the greek goddess name correctly, it's not 'nigh-key' as the Americans pronounce it, or 'nyk' (to rhyme with bike) like the British and other countries pronounce it, its sound is more like an elongated version of the name 'Nicky' , with a slight change to the vowel sounds at the beginning, giving it more like a 'knee' sound, so it is pronounced more like 'Knee-key', very similar to how a French, Spanish or Italian might pronounce the name 'Nicky'
As an American, I can say that when presented with a foreign word, we almost always go to Spanish vowel sounds, since that's by far the most common "foreign" language here. We also tend to copy the Spanish stress on the penultimate syllable. That's exactly where pronunciations like "ah-DEE-das" come from. For all those commenting on "jaguar", the name of the animal comes from Spanish, where "u - a - r" is pronounced much like "war".
Traditionally foreign words in British English would be anglicized. Hence jag-yu-ar. We do that less now. Like the Americans with Spanish words us Brits only manage to stay (broadly) faithful to French words as they make up a big chunk of our vocabulary. The words we’ve taken from Hindi for example have become unrecognizable!
That would depend a lot on when the brand was introduced into the US or was created in the US with a pronunciation that has nothing to do with the the original pronunciation (Nike, US: Nai - key, original: Nii - ké)
@@alanstrang277IMO since it’s an English language everything should be anglicized. That would stop potato-tomato pronunciation bs existing in British English.
The way Hyundai has changed its UK marketing name annoys me. I remember being a kid in the 1980s and it was definitely "high-yun-dye" in all the ads - and now, after around 40 years of the firm calling themselves just that, they are making fun of the way people misspronouce the name!
High and dry.
The Germans are almost right LOL
Nestle wanted to sound more English when it entered the British market many, many years ago so it was called Nestle’s .
The 'Anglo-Swiss Milk Company' (aka Nestlé) was in the UK market from the nineteenth century.
Americans tend to over emphasise individual syllables
They alter the stress point in words a lot of the time with capitol letter pronunciation as in Tom A to it is probably from not learning the sound letters make when spoken, phonic lower case alphabet.
Dont know for certain but it seems that many english pronounciation rules, such as "magic e" are simply not taught to kids in the USA...coupled with a lack of phonics and vowel combinations teaching. Leading to an ongoing "wild west" of pronounciation, where people got to figure out what sounds most right to them🤷♂️
So many words seem to get butchered because the Capital letter sound has been used in a word where there is absolutely no cue to do so...
Such as Semi....there is no cue to pronounce i as I, so therefore it is always Semee.
Brits tend to use the longest syllables possible, and Americans the shortest.
British English has evolved over centuries to be easily _spoken_, whereas American English was developed to be easily learned.
Take, for example, the phrase "The Defence Attache arrived in his Mercedes to watch the Premier League semi-final"
An American would likely stress syllables such as De-fence, A-Ta-Che, Mer-Ce-Des, Pruh-meer and Se-mi.
A Brit would just rattle through the entire sentence without stressing a single syllable, in probably half the time the American took.
Like ‘butt-OX’!
The original Greek pronunciation of Νίκη (Nike), the goddess of victory, would be closer to "Nee-keh" (with two syllables). In classical Greek, the final "e" is pronounced more like the "e" in "met," making it different from the modern pronunciation of the brand.
Seems that the wikipedia entry needs an update.
What i found amusing when watching 'Feli From Germany ' who has lived in the US for about 8 years now was that she did a pronunciation video of German brands Americans say wrong. Adidas was one of them and there were several comments from Americans telling her (a German born woman) that she was wrong!!
As Nike was originally a mythological Greek Goddess of Victory - and the American company named their sports shoes after her - it is not an 'American word'! And both pronunciations are wrong because the Greek Goddesses name is pronounced Nee kay.
Wonderful video for the Gerl Gone London- or maybe the Gurl Gone London, or even the Grrl Gone London!
I’m reasonably sure that when Pantene started marketing in the UK it had a grave accent on the first E: Pantène. Hence in the UK we’d use French pronunciation. NB I’m going from memory, which is not exactly reliable!
Cadbury chocolate is named after the Cadbury family that's why it's pronounced so. Also Bourneville is the town they built for their employees.
Technically, 'Bourneville' means the village where the bourne* is... *bourne meaning *stream. _Is_ there a _stream_ at 'Bournville', or just a 'stream of chocolate' emanating from there?! 🍫🍫🍫🍫🍫🍫🍫🍫🍫🍫🍫🍫🍫🍫😮😂
@@brigidsingleton1596 It's Bournville - and it's on the Bourn Brook, which flows into the River Rea. My father was born there, most people in my family have worked for Cadburys. (My grandmother and great-aunt were in service for Dame Elizabeth.)
@@wessexdruid7598
A 'brook' is also another word from a stream, so my comment still stands - however, my apologies for the misspelt additional 'e'.
@@brigidsingleton1596 You're starting to babble. 🤣🤣
@@Poliss95
Babblababblabbababbla
Another name that Americans pronounce incorrectly is the German brand "Bayer", which should be like "Buyer" (i.e. starting "bi" not "bay").
There are many Greek female names that end in ‘e’ and that e is always pronounced. Some have even migrated into English: Penelope, Hermione, Phoebe, Zoe. All written without accents.
Luckily there is an actress called Hermione Norris around in the 90s who was famous enough to get her name mentioned, and pronounced properly, on tv a lot. It made me laugh when people started talking about 'Hermi-own Grainger.'
Zoë Heriot is spelled with an umlaut.
@@Poliss95
Ë is with diaeresis (the two dots). It signifies that the underlying “e” is pronounced as /ɛ/ (as “e” in “bet”) -- French --
Umtauts are German letters ä, ö, ü and something different.
When foreign words are common in a country and have a different pronunciation there, I think that just is the way it is said there, it isn't wrong as such. Otherwise it is like saying we should all say "Pari" rather than Paris with a sounded 's'.
True, the French call London, Londres. Are they wrong? No, just using their word for our capital city.
McDonald is I think the most popular name in Scotland, or certainly one of the most popular. So we say it in the same way that we say the names of Scottish members of the McDonald clan. Ronald's family presumably moved over from Scotland at some point.
In our house we say we’re going to see the Scottish Clown. Much as you’d go to see the Scottish play!
Actually Smith is the most common surname in Scotland.
The guys that founded McDonald’s might be from the US but the name isn’t. For some reason folks in the US love to butcher Scottish names like McDonald, Craig and Graham/Graeme for example and these aren’t even the difficult Scottish names!
Lots of surnames from lots of different languages take on new pronunciations after the family has been in America for a few generations.
@@JRBWare1942Like Brett "Farve" vs Favre
You missed Jaguar. 🙃
@@stephenlee5929 do you mean jag-wahr?
It's because they can't afford one so pronounce it Jag? Waah.
I'd rather they just said Lynx, or Cheetah, or Snow Leopard, or even tabby...instead of "butchering" Jaguar!! 🐆
...oh and their "Calico cats" are _our_ 'tortie & whites' (tortoisehell & white).
@@brigidsingleton1596 In Argentina it's pronounced Puma. (Rugby Union).
@@Poliss95
Puma (Puma) or Pooma?
You say tomato, I say tomato. Pronounce it however you like.
I really appreciate the McDonalds explanation, as a non English native speaker living in the UK, I have always been wondering how it is and not knowing the "right" way of saying it.
I'm Irish and my mom side of the family are McDonalds and it's pronounced as mac rather than mc as Mc is just the Irish version of the Scottish mac. So do
Surely the Swiss pronunciation would win out for Pantene. None of the four Swiss languages would pronounce it "Panteen". Vowel change for an "e" after the following consonant is an English language thing.
McDonald is a Scottish name. They would never say "Mick" for their Mac/Mc names.
Its Mac in Mcdonalds, there are lot of Scottish names with McSomething because Mc is an abbreviation of Mac (and why its always separately capitalised to the rest of the name) which is a title honorific meaning Son in Gaelic. Its the equivalent of writing the honorifics Mr Donald or Mrs Donald in English. Or in Japanese the San, Chan, Kun, etc..
Also in Gaelic, the female equivalent is Nic - which means ‘daughter of’.
There is no 'food' chain called Mick Donald's, and Mc is correctly pronounced Mac.
Porsche - the e is often dropped by English speakers both sides of the Atlantic but more so by Americans. It's a German brand and all letters are pronounced in German.
It is not panTEEN.
It is in New Zealand, the last "e" makes the previous "e" sound longer.
@@cadifan Yes, according to the general rules of spelling in English, one would expect it to be pronounced that way.
@@cadifan I don't think a Kiwi has a leg to stand on when talking about vowels.
@@Kyrelel Kiwi's have the most accurate vowel pronunciation on the planet. 👍
Just thought I'd tag in how we KIwi's say say these words, we'll either say it the same as the US or the UK.
Pantene - US
Adidas - UK
Nike - US
Kia Sportage - UK
Nissan - UK
Cadbury - depends on the person, sometimes US, sometimes UK, sometimes a mix of the two, but we prefer Whittaker's.
Hyundai - UK (it has three syllables, hy-un-dai)
McDonald's - UK (Mc & Mac are always pronounced MACK) McDonald's in NZ is Macca's
Nestle - UK (both old pronunciation and new)
And then there's Subaru
@@stevelang2416 We use the UK pronunciation and the Americans use the Japanese pronunciation, so I guess that's more correct.
@@stevelang2416 UK here. I say su-ba-ru no stressed syllables as it’s Japanese, right? How else is it said?
Americans pronounce almost everything wrong, Iran, Iraq, Jaguar, Tomato, Worcestershire and so on, as for month, day, year, seriously🤣
Yet they contradict themselves by saying " 4th JULY"
Don’t forget mirror and squirrel!
We're also getting into the time of year where Brits like to watch horror movies, and Americans like to watch the same movies with a pronunciation that would probably get this comment auto removed@@dylantrinder1571
As a NZer I can't see how you would pronounce Iran & Iraq any other way, "I-ran" "I-raq". I agree they balls up Jaguar completely, totally butcher it. I can live with their tomAto. Nobody outside of the UK can pronounce Worcestershire. To me it's War-chester-shire. I know there's no "ch" in the word, that sound is just automatic when trying to pronounce it.
@@dylantrinder1571 And horror movies.
Lidl is an example of the adverts leading the way with the pronunciation in the UK because the ads say 'Lidl prices' (as is little prices) but in Germany it's correct to pronounce it Leedle
For a number of years the UK ads tried to persuade us to use the Leedle pronounciation until they discovered the advantage that liddle is how many Brits say little.
In Japan, the number 23 is pronounced "ni-san" because the number "2" is pronounced "ni" and the number "3" is pronounced "san". Nissan often uses the number 23 in racing events for this reason.
McDonald is a Scottish name, so who knows 😊
Pantene may now be owned by P&G, but its origins are Swiss, who likely pronounce it Panten, the French way. It also got its name because it contains Panthenol. I'm pretty sure that even Americans wouldn't pronounce that Pantheeeenol! 😆
As the French are our next door neighbours (and at one time the British nobility actually spoke French in everyday life!), our pronunciation of words with French language origins tends to more accurately mirror the French pronunciation. I'll leave you with just one word..."croissant" (compare the pronunciation of that if you will!). 😊😉
An 'e' on the end of the word means the second to last letter is pronounced. Without the end 'e', the last letter is silent, croissan 👍versus croissant👎
No 'e' ... ?😊
@@brigidsingleton1596 Indeed. I believe our American friends tend to pronounce it "Krussont", whereas our pronunciation bears a greater resemblance to the actual French name (if not always perfectly so!).
Pantene: In Switzerland part of the country speaks French. Now in French unless there is an "e" on the end of the word, they do, or tend, not pronounce the last letter. eg: Airport is spelt the same way in both languages, but the French do not sound the "t", as there is no "e" on the end. So Pantene if spelt by some one who speaks English, it would be Panten, but due to French it has the "e" on the end.
The one that got me, and is said incorrectly, sometimes both countries, and that is Marlboro. I was living in Greece, and there was an American that was trying to buy some Marlboro, and they just did not understand him, as he was saying Marlborough. So I told him to say it as it was spelt, with boro and not borough, and he was instantly served.
I can't believe people still say Nike to rhyme with bike - the correct pronunciation has been known in the UK for over 30 years.
And I think Cadbury used a drumming gorilla, not dancing ones 😊
Agreed, Nike has always been pronounced the same way in the UK as it is in the US. I've never heard it pronounced to rhyme with bike.
Yes, I've only heard it pronounced the American way. There might be the odd person who deliberately says it wrong. My dad bought a Sony Trinitron TV and used to call it "Try-night-ron".
They did, it was from "In the air tonight" by Phil Collins: th-cam.com/video/YkADj0TPrJA/w-d-xo.html
The cadbury version is here: th-cam.com/video/Dhg_rjpvtME/w-d-xo.html
@@Phiyedough
I've heard Hitachi pronounced in different ways... I say 'Hit_archy_'!!!
My ex boss and her husband called it "Hi_tashy_" 😮?! Will someone please tell me which - if either - is correct?❤ Thank-you.
I’m 52 from the midlands, usually pronounced how it’s spelled. Bike.
It’s like Porsche, we all know you’re supposed to pronounce the ‘e’ but we don’t.
Downunder, McDonalds is often called Maccas, so reinforcing the MacDonalds pronunciation. Both Australia and New Zealand use Maccas.
In Germany, too.
And Mac was a Macintosh (before Apple), no rain wear
'Mc' and 'Mac' in Irish gaelic and Scottish gallic mean 'Son of' and are BOTH pronounced as in 'MACK'.....my name is McDonald which simply means 'Son of Donald'......so NO 'Mic' sound.......please!!!!!
Surnames of all nationalities tend to change pronunciation in America after two or three generations.
I heard that they had to rename the Mazda MR2 in French because the name MR Deux sounds more than a little bit like merde (sh!t) in a French accent.
Kind of like the Vauxhall Nova in Spain - no va = won’t go
I think Brits say “Nike” like Mike because saying “Nike Air” that ways sounds better than “Nikey Air”
I say 'Nikey' ( _not_ "Nike to rhyme with Mike". Mike has his own problems with mic(rophone!!)
nikey airs somehow sounds babyish
Being an ancient Greek goddess, the correct pronunciation is more likely to be something akin to "nee-kay".
@@jerplusjeffare you sure? Compare Aphrodite.
The main difference in pronunciation between American and British is the words is the way words are split into syllables
The US pronunciation of a word directly derived from the French is usually off, if they even use the word in the first place without replacing with the equivalent from Spanish or Italian (zucchini instead of courgette) or an abomination like eggplant for aubergine. Despite centuries of antagonism, we tend to stay closer to the French in the UK (hence Pantene rather than Panteen or Sportage rather than Sportidge). Even now and then though, a French trait will sneak into US English, like the unvoiced h in herb (but then pronouncing it as urb rather than erbe as the French would). Noah Webster's idea of dropping lots of our functional vowel pairs for a single vowel doesn't hugely change the pronounciation... until you come to a word where that vowel pair has been retained, like aunt, and the awkward strangled version of that in US English. And don't even get me started on buoy!
I think part of the problem is that some of these brands existed before TV advertising, and before the internet was a thing. So to take the example of Nike, brits before TV advertising - and without the internet to easily tell them about its basis in the Greek goddess of victory (relatively obscure back in the day unless you had an education in classical religion!) - would have been forgiven for seeing it in print adverts, and pronouncing it to rhyme with words they already had, like 'bike', 'hike', etc.
The TV advertising in many countries then went in either of two directions - "correcting" the pronunciation, or using the local established pronunciation for that brand - with many companies going for the latter because they don't really care what people call them as long as they sell things and make money.
McDonald’s….Mac….Scottish
McDonald’s…..Mc….Northern Ireland
Pretty sure "Nike-ee" isn't how you say "Nike" in Greek by the way. It's actually closer to "Neek-ay". It's where we get the name "Nicola" or "Nicholas" from and the shortened, anglicised form "Nicky" is closer to being the correct pronunciation than either how Americans or Brits pronounce Nike.
Nee-keh
I'm British and one of my pet hates is hearing people call the fast food chain Chipotle 'Chipp-ottall' I get why, if you didn't know better you would pronounce it like its spelt and there's no accent over the final e. But it's named after a South American pepper that's pronounced the 'chih-POHT-lay' pepper.
The L in chipotle in the original language (not Spanish) is pronounced like LL in Welsh.
Wherever a name is used, then the original pronunciation of the NOUN is ALWAYS correct. But brands often create product names that are region specific and the same product may have different names in different places. There is no right or wrong here. There is certainly only one correct way to say Hyundai, but 'Sportage' is definitely not a Korean word. McDonald's is a weird one, as it's clearly a Gaelic name and in Scotland/Ireland both McDonald and MacDonald are always 'Mack-'. Interestingly, the the apostrophe should be after the s not before it, as the name refers to a restaurant owned by the McDonald Brothers.
"Pantene" is obviously a French word (from the Swiss inventors, Hoffman La Roche), and the British pronunciation is nearest to the French, so the British pronunciation is correct.
"Nissan" is pronounced "Datsun" (you have to be quite old to understand this comment).
As an aviation fan it's always struck me how Americans pronounce Lufthansa. They stress the second syllable and pronounce the 'a' as a kind of 'o' so end up saying luft-hOnza. The way we say it is much closer to the original German.
If pronouncing Sportage the British way would sound too fancy to American ears, how do you explain the varying pronunciations of "garage", where the situation is pretty much reversed? Admittedly with garage, there's also a shift in stress between the first and second syllable, but the point stands.
With Cadbury, being from it's home in Birmingham we always said Cabury's rather than just Cadbury. Pronounced Cad-burr-ees.
The "magic Eee" makes the I say Aye!!
Rules of English! As invented and spoken by ENGLISH people (British as you Americans say). Trust me. Irish English, Welsh English and Jockish English are not the same!
Mind you, neither are Cornish, Geordie, Brummie, Yorksha, Cockney etc. But they really do mostly follow the rules of English Grammar.
Mind you, that actually HASN'T EVEN BEEN TAUGHT in our schools for many years aparantly.
Oh Yeah. Nestles Milky Bar!
Old adverts for Cadbury, would say ..cadburys dairy milk or cadburys caramel. Etc.
Yeah, using Wikipedia to justify the mispronunciation of Nike 🤣Neither is right
With regard to McDonalds...
The only real difference in the correct (ie Scottish) pronunciation of any Mc/Mac name is where the stress falls, which itself is guided by whether the rest of the name starts with a consonant or vowel. (There may be exceptions, but i can't think of any)
If the post-mac part starts with a vowel, the stress is on the first syllable, so McIntosh/Macintosh is pronounced as MACintosh, leading to a strong "mac" sound.
If it's a consonant, the stress is on the second syllable, so McDonald/MacDonald is pronounced macDONald, leading to a weaker "mac", usually sounding more like "m'c".
I’m just going to add a Japanese perspective here. In Japanese a written word almost always has only one pronunciation, so when you see something written down you know just from that how to pronounce it, and as the companies decide how something is written, the pronunciation can be thought of as officially endorsed.
I will write whether the Japanese is closer to the US pronunciation or the UK one:
Pantene: closer to the UK one (with emphasis on the second syllable)
Adidas: Same as UK/German pronunciation
Nike: Closer to the US/Greek pronunciation
Kia Sportage: Couldn’t find anything in Japanese as I don’t think Kia cars are sold here. But I checked the original Korean, and it sounds like “spottage” (rhyming with “cottage”), which I’d say is slightly closer to the US pronunciation. Not surprising given the prevalence of US English in Korean schools.
Nissan: No contest here, considering that Nissan is not just Japanese, but it’s not a made up name but is a shortening of Nippon Sangyo, so the pronunciation predates the company. The US pronunciation is way off base, stressing the wrong syllable and using a vowel sound that doesn’t exist in Japanese. The UK pronunciation is much closer, but the two “s”es should be pronounced separately - so “Nis” would rhyme with “Miss” and “san” would rhyme with “pan”.
Cadbury’s: Not a popular brand in Japan and only sold in specialty shops, so not a name I hear often in Japanese. It is written as “Kyad” and “Barry”, but don’t ask me why. Doesn’t match either pronunciation.
Hyundai: Is called “Gen Dai” in Japan (with a hard G, and “Dai” the same as “dye”). Let’s… just ignore the Japanese here. In Korea it’s pronounced the same as the second advert.
McDonald’s: In Japan a surname starting with “Mc” is always pronounced “Mac” regardless of how it’s supposed to be pronounced. Same here.
Nestle: Pronounced pretty much the same as the new UK pronunciation. (However, I grew up in the UK hearing “nestly” on TV and that’s how I still pronounce it.)
Thanks, great to get input with Asian knowledge!
As a Canadian radio announcer I used more British English pronunciation .. was corrected by advertisers for saying piña colada and Honda 'prel-yood' (vs pray-lood), but refused to talk about cooking "pah-sta."
To be fair, Standard American puts ah sounds in a lot of places British (and other forms of English) use the a sound from ‘pack’. Likely influenced by other Northern European immigrants over the centuries. Pray-lood is unforgivable though 😂
I lived in then US for 25 years from the UK and never noticed that yes McDonalds is pronounced differently and I had just put down MickeyD’s name to my wife being a little weird and she has never corrected my pronunciation for it. Still learning after a quarter of a century.
I think that marketing in Hyundai deliberately encourage different ways of saying the name as it promotes the brand. In Australia they used to "say Hi to a Hyundai"
Similar with Nissan in the UK, ‘You can with a Nissan’. Maybe you had that in Australia too?
Nestlé changed from being called Ness-oowz to Ness-lay in the UK after 1992.
Perhaps the Korean guy learned English from American teachers so leans towards US pronunciation. But "Sportage" is a made up name so I don't think there's any rule unless Kia's marketing department comes out and says it's definitely Sport-ah-guh or something.
I find the Sportage debate very ironic in so many ways. Like Americans think it sounds too posh by the Brits...yet when it comes to the word 'Garage', it's different aswell for both sides. Since Americans say 'GA-RAJ' while Brits say 'GAH-RIDGE' 😂 So the fact that We say 'SPOR-TAJ' and Americans say 'Spor-tidge' is very ironic.
Dacia....always pronounced "day sia" but the marketing people tried to change it to "dacha"...it didn't work.
I think you are correct in saying that each pronunciation is "taught" by the marketing people of each country. I can rabbit on for ages with examples.....
Country dependent
Grear vid had a good laugh
@paulchambers3142 Dacia is your little cottage in the country in Eastern Europe, pronounced Dacha.
A game I played with my daughters was to take generic US company names and posh them up for example Target becomes Tar jay to make it more French posh just to be silly
As a general rule Americans pronounce the A as AR if it’s the last vowel in a word.
No we don't.
I agree with the British pronunciation of Sportage, as it looks like a French word, and that’s the way the French would say it.
Cadbury sounds similar to place names in the UK. Sainsbury, Salisbury, Glastonbury, Canterbury.
I can remember when Oikos yogurt entered the American market. Their advertising pronounced it the way Americans would naturally pronounce it (which is also how it would have been pronounced in ancient Greek). Then just a couple years ago, their advertising started pronouncing it the way a modern Greek would say it: ee-kos.
So enjoy your videos….Brit, living in Texas
Have fun with finding saying the Swiss watch brand Jaeger-LeCoultre. Not really a British v American thing but even in Switzerland there seems to be differences in how it's pronounced. Many just abbreviate it to JLC and we can all get that. On a humorous note who invented the English language.... I'll get my coat... oh I see you already have it... Taxi!!.
I think that a country will localize a name based on how they think people will say it and it doesn't sound rude. I used to work for Nestle and used to tell people that i worked for Nes -ills to the family and Nes-lay professionally.
I'm not sure you can say the US pronunciation of Pantene is "correct", when the brand owner themself has made an advert using the UK pronunciation! The fact is that (most) brands don't care how people in different countries pronounce their name, as long as they recognise the brand and buy the product.
Nissan because i's a double S in the middle meaning the A is pushed away from changing the vowel quality of the I "Niss" rhymes with "miss"
Car model names are another minefield - montego, bZ4X, and ibiza for instance.
The best ones were the Renault Fuego, often rendered in English as "few go", and the Volkswagen Sharan. VW were warned everone would call it a Sharon, but didn't get the Essex Girl reference.
@@davidjones332
I am English (SE.London) and I say 'Fwaygo' for Fuego.
And what about a Mondeo? Day-o or Dee-o
@@PaulSPurvesanyone else having a Beetlejuice flashback?!
@@PaulSPurves Not to mention the Monte-no-go.
Nestlé was not actually said in adverts, it was always Nestle's, the s meaning the accent wasn't pronounced.
And the logo has always been birds nestling. It switched to _"Nestlé Milky Bar!"_ in UK adverts in the 90s, but Nestle's chocolate was sold in the UK for about a century (it used to be widely found in vending machines on railway station platforms).
@@wessexdruid7598it was not only sold in the UK, it was also made in the UK, as was Nestles coffee.
@@CaseyJonesNumber1 I have worked at Tutbury, among many other Nestlé UK sites.
@@wessexdruid7598I had the (now long closed) Hayes coffee factory near me - in Nestles Avenue (without apostrophe, or accent on the e! 😄). The smell of the coffee roasting when the wind was blowing our way was heavenly!
The French spelling of "-es" without apostrophe would sound like /e/ -- as does e with accent ague: "é" .
The apostrophe in Nestlé's is a possesive one in English spelling. The possesive "-'s" is not used in French or German.
I beg to differ. Pantene is made by Proctor & Gamble, P&G. I worked for P&G for 20 years, in the UK and am a P&G Associate ie retiree with a pension. Even today there are P&G facilites in the London area, Bournemouth, Manchester and the Newacastle area. We always called Pantene Pan ten, even the Americans amongst us.
I still say Nestle like they do in the old Milky Bar ads that you showed.
I hate change. 😀
The classic car brand pronounced differently is Peugeot.
In the US I hear Pew-jo, whereas in the UK is Per-jo.
As it's French, us Brits keep to nearly the French pronunciation (see also Nestlé).
the latest TV ad for Hyundai has Brits wandering around asking there phone to direct them saying Hi-yun-di, and being directed to High and Dry, and similar then a lady passing says, by the way it's Hyoon- di
My recollection of Cadbury being used in a UK advert is from a Cadbury Fudge advert where they sing " A finger of fudge is just enough to give your kids a treat, it's full of Cadbury goodness etc...". Unfortunately at the time I heard this as full of peppery goodness so didn't exactly entice me not does it help your attempt to determine the pronunciation:-)
"Peppery" lol...?!! Oh myyy!!😊
@Mrhullsie2 EVERYONE says 'peppery goodness' because that's exactly what they sing in the ad. 😁😁
@@Poliss95
"...it's full of Cadbury goodness and..." 🤭
Yup, I thought that too😂
Was most certainly NESTLES MILKY BAR when I was a kid.
Thank you for confirming that. I shall share it with my son who can't wait to have me put in a home with dementia!!
😂😂😂
Not really, I sometimes I do wonder and aren't going to sign anything he asks me to.
🤣😂🤣
My grandad used to work for Nestle and it was always pronounced Nessle's
Most Scots say Nike as Nikey, as we do know about the Greek legend. Scots would agree with MickDonald as it is a Scottish surname.
5:03 Cadbury. Tbh. I hadn't even noticed that I wasn't pronouncing the "d" until I just said it out loud to myself.
If you asked me to read the word out loud on its own, I'd say "Cadbury" with the "d." If I was just chatting, the "d" disappears completely. 😅
I'm unfamiliar with Brits mispronouncing Nike. I've always known the goddess derivation but still do not remember Brits saying otherwise.
I have never rhymed Nike with bike, that is the benefit of a classical education that fills your head with Greek mythological names that never benefitted a 42 year career in IT (though they have come in handy in pub quizzes, so maybe not a total waste).
On the subject of Cadbury, I say it pretty much how it is said in the USA, and everyone i know does the same. And I am in NE Scotland. So I would think it is all an accent difference.
In the UK the name Maurice as in Maurice McDonald is pronounced as Morris
There was an NFL player called Maurice Morris which would sound like Morris Morris in the UK.
The Kia Sportage is the odd saying cause in Canada they say it differently to how we say it in the US and I notice our Sportage models look to be bigger then the UK models
Unless it is something completely different does really matter? A rose by another name
I would think a rose not a rose could be a nettle, or a stinkpot...
I prefer place name words and people's names to be correctly pronounced and spelt. I have good reason for this as you / others might call me "Brigit" - which _really grinds my gears_ 😠😡!!
Nike like nikey, because it's Greek. I've always said it that way, but I've heard both in the UK.
I think sportage and pantene are pronounced that way because they sound French and we're used to that... maybe.
Cadbree for sure. Nissan like miss Anne.
Hyunday as in Sunday only changed last year, the ads always said it the way we say it until last year, we were confused.
McDonald's as in mac because of all the reasons you said, plus we say MackyD's and in the eighties, some London branches were used by IV users tu pop in, do their thing and pop out again, so it used to get called SmackDonalds, playing on the British slang for the opiate of 'heroine' , smack which usually indicated someone using it via IV. Those branches often had blue lights in the toilet cubicles so veins become invisible. They'd switch them out regularly as most paying customers didn't like it. I feel it's more a London thing though.
You have a new sub, welcome to my home town.
Nestlé changed how it's pronounced from nestle in UK about the 70's.
Later than that - it was after the Rowntree merger. (As someone who worked for the company..)
Cadbury. My late-mother's head-mistress at Chelmsford High School was a member of the Cadbury family, and my mother always said 'Cadb'ry'. (Had she still been alive, my mother would have been 90 next month.)