Pronouncing Jambalaya

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

My name is Gary Prober from Santa Maria, California.

Welcome to the show, Gary. What can we do for you?

Well, I’m hoping you’ll settle an argument. I’ve been having with a real good friend of mine. His name’s Jim.

And we’ve been friends for over 40 years and we do a lot together, but we like to argue.

About a year ago, he came back from South Carolina, and he was telling me that he had this wonderful meal.

He had the best jambalaya he had ever had.

And I thought, well, okay, I’ll yank his chain a little bit, and I asked him if that was anything like a jambalaya.

And we’ve been going at it ever since.

Now, my side, my opinion, is based on two premises.

One is the way it’s spelled.

And I look at it and I see jamba.

And I don’t see jumbo, I see jambalaya.

And the other thing is I’m an amateur harmonica player and I play with some guys and we play some Hank Williams tunes.

And when I hear Hank sing jambalaya, I hear jamba, jambalaya, not jambalaya.

So Jim won’t give up.

I won’t give up.

And so, oh, a while later, I’m in a southern-themed restaurant, and I see jambalaya on the menu.

I ask the wait person, hey, how do you pronounce it?

They say jambalaya, which I like.

I ask him if I can videotape him, send it to Jim.

Well, pretty soon he’s sending me multiple videotapes of multiple weight persons pronouncing it jambalaya.

And, you know, when we’re with a group, we ask people how they pronounce it.

Unfortunately, based on head count, I think I’m losing that battle.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, here’s a couple of things.

First, I think your friend is right. Most people do say jambalaya. Jambalaya is incredibly rare. And even when people do say jambalaya, it’s a super short A. It’s jambalaya like that. It sounded kind of like a schwa, didn’t it? But it wasn’t. Jambalaya.

The other thing is all the dictionaries I checked except for one include only the jambalaya pronunciation. So you can’t go by spelling. Particularly for a word like that, which is a dialect or probably has foreign origins, the spelling is only an approximation. It’s only a rough guide of pronunciation. You have to go by tradition and culture. And food words in particular have this problem. You’ve got to pronounce it the way other people pronounce it.

And that said, if you go to cooking shows on YouTube and look up recipes for jambalaya or jambalaya, you will find a staggering probably 99 out of 100 people say jambalaya. And we’re talking cooks and chefs at all levels. You know, people who run restaurant chains versus the home chef who’s trying to make a name for themselves.

I’ve been losing that battle.

Should we all lose in such a nice way to have a nice plate of Creole food, right?

Yeah, we even had a dinner party here, and my wife made up a nice big batch of rice and sausage and shrimp.

You’re not going to say that.

And to sidestep the argument, she called it jimbolaya.

That was going to be my suggestion.

The thing is, there are people who say it like you say it, but you’re vastly outnumbered.

And the people who are in the food business that I know and all of the major dictionaries of English, the ones that I think matter for U.S. pronunciation, all record jambalaya as the standard pronunciation.

However.

However.

However.

There’s always a however.

I mean, we’re talking.

Please give me a however.

Well, it’s a little however, but I’ve heard so many different versions of the song, the really popular song.

And I could swear that people like Emmylou Harris say jambalaya.

They might.

They might say it.

I’m not 100% sure about that, but there’s so many different versions of that Hank Williams song.

Here’s the thing.

I think you guys need to have that dinner, and he pays 25%, and you pay 75%, because that’s about the level that you each write.

Okay, I’ll go with that.

Because both pronunciations exist.

I have to find something else now to argue about, though.

I don’t think you’re going to have much of a problem with that, Gary, from what I hear.

I think your wife’s renaming strategy was clever.

Yes.

However, there is a dish called Hopping Johnny, which that word, that name is also sometimes been applied to jambalaya.

So there’s numerous dishes that take the name Hopping Johnny.

So maybe you just call it Hopping Johnny and be done with it.

Hopping John, yeah.

Well, I thank you for settling it.

I think we can let it go to rest.

Okay.

Well, Gary, thanks.

Call us again sometime and let us know about future fights.

All right?

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Take care.

Enjoy that meal.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

877-929-9673.