3 ms·

This is way off-topic (and, I know, language is arbitrary and often inconsistent, so it’s not “wrong”), but… am I the only one who thinks it’s inelegant that we

This is way off-topic (and, I know, language is arbitrary and often inconsistent, so it’s not “wrong”), but… am I the only one who thinks it’s inelegant that we spell “derailer” the French way (dérailleur) but pronounce it the English way? As a personal stylistic choice I always write “derailer”, which is the same way all Americans pronounce it.

CydeWeys 4y ago
Some people I know pronounce it the French way, for whatever that's worth. And these are not all people that speak French.
- swimfar 4y ago
  Do you mean they just pronounce the "eur" part like in French? Or do they actually say day-rye-eur? It would sound really weird to pronounce the word like in French.
  - wizofaus 4y ago
    "Duh-rail-yer" is the only pronunciation I've heard, which is presumably some sort of half-hearted attempt to keep it sounding "foreign" without using phonemes that most English speakers would struggle with (particularly the 'r').
jfengel 4y ago
That's common in English. Spelling is digital so it's easy to error check, and remains static. Pronunciation is analog and drifts. English spelling often gives hints about where words were at the time of the Great Vowel Shift, when printing was just starting to standardize orthography. We got a mishmash of various places, and words that entered after can be spotted from words that entered before. This is of course a much more modern word. But the French were the innovators in cycling and they got to set the word, and mostly the spelling (though we did lose the diacritical mark). You can try to update the spelling, but that rarely works. Autocorrect will likely entrench weird English orthography further. Oddly, if I type dérailler, my phone automatically adds the accent (because I have a French keyboard installed. That is a different French word, or rather, it's the infinitive "to detail". It's pronounced duh-rye-a.
- justinator 4y ago
  I would also accept "Disraeli" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disraeli_Gears https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disraeli_Gears
TAKEMYMONEY 4y ago
There's at least one other person that agreed, Sheldon Brown (who else) > I am on a one-man campaign to replace the foreign spelling "dérailleur" with the English spelling and pronunciation "derailer." https://www.sheldonbrown.com/derailer.html https://www.sheldonbrown.com/derailer.html

CydeWeys 4y ago

Some people I know pronounce it the French way, for whatever that's worth. And these are not all people that speak French.

swimfar 4y ago
Do you mean they just pronounce the "eur" part like in French? Or do they actually say day-rye-eur? It would sound really weird to pronounce the word like in French.
- wizofaus 4y ago
  "Duh-rail-yer" is the only pronunciation I've heard, which is presumably some sort of half-hearted attempt to keep it sounding "foreign" without using phonemes that most English speakers would struggle with (particularly the 'r').

jfengel 4y ago

That's common in English. Spelling is digital so it's easy to error check, and remains static. Pronunciation is analog and drifts. English spelling often gives hints about where words were at the time of the Great Vowel Shift, when printing was just starting to standardize orthography. We got a mishmash of various places, and words that entered after can be spotted from words that entered before. This is of course a much more modern word. But the French were the innovators in cycling and they got to set the word, and mostly the spelling (though we did lose the diacritical mark). You can try to update the spelling, but that rarely works. Autocorrect will likely entrench weird English orthography further. Oddly, if I type dérailler, my phone automatically adds the accent (because I have a French keyboard installed. That is a different French word, or rather, it's the infinitive "to detail". It's pronounced duh-rye-a.

justinator 4y ago
I would also accept "Disraeli" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disraeli_Gears https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disraeli_Gears

TAKEMYMONEY 4y ago

There's at least one other person that agreed, Sheldon Brown (who else) > I am on a one-man campaign to replace the foreign spelling "dérailleur" with the English spelling and pronunciation "derailer." https://www.sheldonbrown.com/derailer.html https://www.sheldonbrown.com/derailer.html