Niche Pronunciation

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hey, Martha. Hey, Grant.

Hello, who’s this?

This is Lance Justice calling from America’s finest city, San Diego.

Cool. What are you calling us about?

I’m calling you about a word.

This word is spelled N-I-C-H-E.

Oh, okay.

And I’m just calling about the proper pronunciation of this word in America

And whether or not it’s used differently in different contexts.

And how do you say it? And what are your contexts?

So, I’m a former student of biology.

I pronounce the word niche, like hitch.

This is how I’ve always been taught to use it,

Although I think it is of French origin.

Right.

And some people do pronounce it niche, like quiche.

But I get like this underlying tone of pretentiousness.

Whenever I hear somebody say niche.

But disclaimer, if you’re from the UK, it’s okay.

Oh, I see.

Why?

Just because they’re automatically pretentious?

Just get away with it.

Oh, I see.

Okay.

They talk funny anyway.

Yeah, yeah.

I want to raise my pinky when somebody says that.

But I’m not hearing the difference in the context.

Are there situations in which you would say niche, you yourself, Lance?

Not that I know of because I only use it in the biological sense.

I’m a science teacher.

So this word comes up.

You got a really great question here.

And the cool thing about this is we know a little about this

Because people have been tracking this pronunciation change for more than 100 years.

Oh, wow.

Like a lot of the words we borrowed from French that have a C-H surrounded by vowels,

We borrowed it wholly and completely into English and just made it a ch sound.

C-H is like a church or chunk or chip, right?

Right.

And then something happened about 100 years ago.

People began pronouncing it differently.

And a number of commentators wrote, you know, long screeds against it.

You should not pronounce it as the French do because it’s now an American word

And it’s been Americanized and who do you think you are?

Are you poser, faker, you?

Basically, is the sum total of their message.

But it grows by the day, by the year, by the decade.

And more often than not, now people do pronounce it as niche.

That’s not to say that either pronunciation is more correct.

It’s just there’s some people who are holding on to niche and are reluctant to grant you niche.

Okay.

I learned niche.

I don’t know why or how, but that was how I was taught it.

And that’s where the problem lies these days.

If you make an accusation that somebody is a pretentious fool, they might not be their fault.

They might have been taught in school to say niche.

Right.

I understand.

I just get that, I don’t know, it just drives me bananas when I hear it the other way.

Right, right.

Right.

But you don’t say quiche.

No.

You like a slice of quiche.

But you also don’t say avalanche.

You say avalanche, right?

Right.

Which is another word we got from the French.

There’s a whole bunch of these.

There’s some words in French that retain that ch sound instead of taking a more normal English ch sound when you’re having a ch together.

So cliché, machine.

We don’t say mustache.

We say mustache, right?

Or we don’t say chute, we say shoot.

Right.

The C-H-U-T-E.

So, in any case, to summarize all my long meandering thought here on this is,

Currently, most experts say that pronunciation of the word is more formally niche,

But both are acceptable.

Okay, thank you so much.

I hope that helps.

Yes.

Thanks, Lance.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

So you say niche.

I say niche, but…

Actually, I usually say Nicky.

Of course you do.

He’s such a contrarian.

No, I say the most pretentious way possible, which is Niche.

I like that.

I’m going to steal that.

So say it my way.

And if you have a dispute about pronunciation, call us 1-877-929-9673

Or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.