FORT Koffee Klatch

[Ellen]

Hey, I pronounced it "for-TAY" for years until a friend corrected me. Several things I've read say that both pronunciations are acceptable, but basically only because so many people have mis-pronounced it for so long! Something about that really bugs me.

I think both pronunciations are considered acceptable because there is still debate as to the linguistic origin of its idiomatic use[s].
In music, it's the Italian /fɔr-te'/. Anything else, the etymological jury is out as to whether the Italian or French pronunciation is the correct one.

[Rattus]

Well, if the jury's still out,then I'm going back to "fort-ay" since most people don't seem to understand it when one uses "fort" and I've got so many other things I can squabble over. Or, over which I can squabble, if we're going to be grammatically uptight.

[justCoz]

Both pronunciations are listed in both dictionaries I looked in so I'm going to continue with fort-ay.

[pikachu]

This discussion is making me think of the Nat King Cole song, "Darling, Je Vous Aime Beacoup". He pronounced forte as "fort". Personally I never use the word so I'm not sure which form I would use. I don't care which form other people use. I'm sure in the context I'd know what they're talking about (forte as in a strength not fort as in a building).

Ah, cherie, my love for you is tres, tres forte,
Wish my French were good enough, I'd tell you so much more".

[Baby's Breath]

This is how my French instructor taught us:

French I: Changing Masculine to Singular Feminine

[prhoshay]

It kills me AND my ears to hear somebody use "seen" where they should use "saw".

[pikachu]

Even Tweety Bird knew better than that. You never heard him say "I tawt I seen a puddy tat"!

[Debb70]

It kills me AND my ears to hear somebody use "seen" where they should use "saw".

You know this is one of my worst pet peeves. I can't stand it! lol For some reason I hear it stated that way almost everyday, either on tv, radio, or live. (There is even a song out that I like, but this one line that uses seen instead of saw ruins it for me. I undertand creative license and all, but it drives me nuts.)

What I have noticed is that people who do this, also get the tense wrong in other ways too. When it should be did, they say done, etc. It's as if they if they always pick the wrong one. It's difficult to understand this.

I have read on this board that it must be what they heard when growing up to pick the wrong word, but some of these people grew up with me and we heard the same things, so I don't understand how that works.

[Miss Scarlet]

Even Tweety Bird knew better than that. You never heard him say "I tawt I seen a puddy tat"!

Little did we know that Tweety Bird was educational TV.

[prhoshay]

I remember that I used to use the wrong tense of a word just to watch my mother's hair stand on end!!! That always cracked me up!!! She wouldn't say anything.......just give me that lond-held, eyeball-on-eyeball stare!!! God bless that woman for having to put up with my warped sense of humor.