#52 Vaz or Vayse

A colleague asked me something the other day. I had just used the word vase in one of my commentaries and he asked why I didn’t pronounce it “vaz.” I skipped my brother-in-law’s explanation―that if it’s over 50 bucks it’s a vaz―and instead said that language can be a regional thing. Cause it got me thinking. We here in Warsh-ington do have our fermiliar ways of speakin. Most strangers would naturally assume that Sequim would be pronounced see-quee-im, Yell-em would be Yelm, and Ah-lympia would be Oh-lympia. Maybe it’s not as easy to pick out as some of the major dialects. Like the Brooklyn people wit their fuggetaboutits and the people from Boah-ston driving their cahs. Or the southern-fried cohnpones and rednecks with their use of fewer syllables with words like chit’lins instead of chitterlings and more syllables like when they say mo-ah instead of more.
Some words are more subtle. Like why we say vittles instead of victuals. It’s spelled v-i-c-t-u-a-l-s. It comes from the French “vitaille” which actually sounds more like vittles. So why didn’t we just move it across language barrier whole rather than stick in that v-i-c-t- thing? Or how about the word subtle. S-u-b-t-l-e. As far as I can tell, everybody in the country pronounces it suttle. Not sub-tle. Why not just give the slow-learners a break from fifth grade torment and spell it like it sounds? I know we have to keep the “Hooked On Phonics” people in business with enough exceptions about non-phonic stuff to justify their existence, but really.
Or the word snickered? As in, he snickered at the joke. Some authors write it sniggered. At first I wasn’t sure if they were two different things, kind of like the difference between a burst of laughter and a guffaw. Or a chortle and a chuckle. While we’re on the subject, does one “burst out laughing” or “bust out laughing?”
And why, here in the Northwest, is it always “pouring down” rain? Has there ever been an episode of rain pouring up? Or when someone is really inebriated why are they falling-down drunk? I’m guessing anybody that falls is likely to fall down. Unless of course you’re in space. Are we trying to distinguish between drunks that are astronauts or not?
It makes getting over the language barrier tricky. We have a local restaurant whose owners appear to be from Guatemala. They named their restaurant Guanaco. Guanaco are small creatures prized for their fine wool, kind of like midget llamas. I had one as a pet once that I called Fernando. Anyhow. The name most Americans are familiar with that sounds like Guanaco is Guano. The two words look a lot a like from a distance. My sister was up visiting and that was exactly what she thought as we drove by it. Guano, unfortunately, is a natural fertilizer created from deposits of bird excrement.
Oh yeah, bird poop. There’s a good name for a restaurant. Even worse, the poor proprietors of the fine establishment in question opened up a lounge, and true, they thought, to the Guatemalan theme, but trying to come up with a hip Americanism, they named it the G-spot lounge. I kid you not.
Like I said, language can be a regional thing.
America Ya Gotta Love It.