A tattoo artist in Wilmington, North Carolina, is debating the correct pronunciation of labret, a piercing just below the lip. The best choice is to put the stress on the first syllable, which should make it have assonance more or less with tablet. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “What’s the Correct Pronunciation of “Labret”?”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hey, how’s it going?
This is Brian, and I’m calling from Wilmington, North Carolina.
Right there on the coast.
Well, welcome to the show, Brian.
What’s up?
Okay, so I run a piercing and tattoo shop, and I have a question, and it’s about a specific piercing.
And this piercing is below the bottom lip and above the chin.
Most piercers will insist that the word is pronounced labrette with a T at the end, the hard T.
But some other people will say, well, the word came through France, so it’s labrette.
So I would love to know the official word on that.
Oh, goodness.
And what do you call it?
I say labrette with a hard T.
Labrette.
That’s what you say.
Labrette.
L-A-B-R-E-T.
So this piercing below the lower lip, above the chin.
Well, they’re all wrong.
No.
Well, we don’t usually say stuff like that on the show.
So let me just put it this way.
Those are not the best choice for pronouncing this word.
The more strict and traditional pronunciation is labret, with the stress on the first syllable, not the last, and not a Frenchy pronunciation.
Because it is not a French word.
It’s fully anglicized.
And we can be pretentious or jokey about it and pronounce it the French way, but that’s just not the best choice.
However, I should point out that if you look in dictionaries, there are at least four different pronunciations because all of them are fairly widespread.
So is Le Bray wrong?
No, it’s just not.
I mean, if you’re ever talking about labrettes, you say, in front of the Senate or to King Charles, then maybe you want to use the more formal pronunciation.
But otherwise, you’re fine.
It’s a tattoo shop.
Nice labrette, King.
It’s a tattoo shop and a piercing shop, right?
I mean, how formal do we need to get?
Oh, my goodness.
That’s okay.
Wow.
So let me say, let me practice it.
Labrette.
Labrette.
Yeah, stress on the first syllable.
Labrette.
Labret.
Wow.
And it just does not work for most people because we don’t want to do that with two-syllable words.
We don’t want to stress the first syllable.
Oh, we’re doing it.
We’re stressing the first syllable.
We’re starting now.
Well, that would solve this big controversy in your community, right?
I gather that a lot of people have strong feelings both ways.
Interestingly, yes.
People love to debate, and it’s just one of those words.
There’s also the dace versus the dot piercing, which I’ve done a bunch of research on, too.
So people love to get a little snippy with each other in the shop.
Yeah, it’s kind of something to talk about while you’re going through a full sleeve, right?
Exactly. That would be a long conversation, though.
Well, Brian, thank you so much for this question.
I hope we haven’t created a new argument in your community where people, it’s all of you versus the two of us.
Oh, it’s okay.
I’m going to send this out.
I’m going to play this in the shop on repeat.
I’m going to loop it.
I’m just going to make sure everybody knows that I’m right.
And everyone else, they can learn.
I love it.
We’ll be like, why are we getting this flood of questions about tattooing?
Just constant harassment from tattoo people.
Thank you so much, Brian.
Take care of yourself.
Thank you so much.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
In your workplace, is there a controversy over a word or phrase?
Call us about it, and we’ll try to settle it.
