Pronouncing Forte

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, how’s it going?

Great. Who’s this?

This is Sean Freeman. I’m calling from Billings, Montana.

Hi, Sean. How are you doing?

Hey, Sean.

Great.

What can we help you with?

Well, I have a question. My brother is an English teacher, and so I usually, you know, trust him on what he says.

But at the same time, he’s kind of messed with me a lot as I’ve been growing up since he’s my older brother and all.

And I don’t know if I should trust him or not on this.

Okay, let’s hear it.

So he says that people commonly mispronounce the word forte when referring to a strength.

He says when referring to the musical term for loudness, that’s fine, because it comes from the Italian root for loud.

But when referring to strength, it comes from the French root.

And so he says you’re supposed to pronounce it fort instead of forte.

And I’ve never called him out on it, and I’ve never heard anybody else say fort instead of forte.

And I don’t know if it’s one of those things where it used to be that way, but it’s kind of become common to say forte now or if he’s right or what.

You’ve summed it up pretty darn well.

I think Grant and I are probably on the same page about this because the word is just skunked.

I mean, you know, it’s a no-win word.

I always try to find another word besides that word.

Right.

The F word.

Let me spin this around a different direction.

The thing is, most people, 99.99% say forte.

And then there’s the tiny percentage of people who insist that that’s wrong.

And the problem with that is that they’re wrong, not just because of usage, it’s because even though it doesn’t come from Italian, it comes from French.

And in French, you don’t pronounce it forte either.

You say for.

Well, I’m glad I’ve never corrected anybody on it.

Well, I usually try not to correct people in colloquial conversations anyway, because I just feel like if it’s not something scholarly, I don’t really, you know, I’m not one of those grammar Nazis on Facebook or anything like that.

Yeah, that’s a great policy.

So does your brother just, like, go around giving people unsolicited language advice?

Oh, I think he does, yeah.

He kind of likes to be right and likes to tell other people they’re wrong.

That’s really insupportable behavior.

That’s really, like, yeah, that’s not really good manners, is it?

Well, he thinks he’s helping them, I think, you know.

Yeah, and that’s the problem, right?

Well, if it’s his students, that’s one thing.

You said he was an English teacher.

Fine.

He’s hired to do that for his students.

But I don’t know, family members, if they’re not his kids or in line at the store, no.

Yeah, well, I’m thinking more probably friends on Facebook or something if they use the wrong your or the wrong there or something.

That’s a private message, though, maybe, if at all, if any message at all.

That’s the thing you do behind channels where everyone else can’t see it.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah, I agree with you there.

Just to be clear, forte is the now accepted pronunciation.

The people who insist that it isn’t, all of their arguments that I’ve ever heard are incorrect.

They fly in the face of usage.

They fly in the face of etymology.

They should probably not be saying that anymore.

Yeah, I mean, they argue that people are confusing it with the Italian for strong, forte, that you see in musical notation.

Or for loud.

Yeah, yeah.

Loud, strong. Yeah. Yeah. They both go back to a Latin word that means strong gives a Spanish forte.

But the word is fully Anglicized. It is in the language as forte. It is no longer a foreign word.

And I don’t use it. I just avoid it. Martha’s advice was good, Sean. It’s skunked in this business.

We got that from Brian Garner, who is a great language expert in Texas.

And then skunked means it’s so disputed, though, that just to be on the safe side so that people aren’t paying too much attention to your language or paying attention to your message is best avoided in formal writing and speech.

Okay.

And I’m surprised he made a big deal about it because he’s somebody that’s always telling me, preaching that language is something that evolves.

It’s not stagnant.

And so it’s like when people complain about, people my age complain about the word bay or cray-cray or something.

Well, we had our own, you know, slang words that our parents didn’t like, too.

We did.

Didn’t we, though?

Cats pajamas, bees knees.

I think that’s a little before your time, Martha.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate that.

I’m going to definitely let them know to stop correcting people on that.

Yeah, that’s our advice.

Good luck with that, Sean.

And if he wants to call and argue his point, we’re welcome.

Have him give us a call, all right?

All right, sure thing.

Yeah, he might want to do that.

Take care now.

Bye-bye.

Bye, Sean.

Thank you.

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