As we noted in an earlier conversation, people in the United States usually pronounce the word buoy as BOO-ee, but their counterparts in Britain tend to pronounce it BOY. Commercials airing in the U.S. for Lifebuoy soap use the British pronunciation, though, because this soap was introduced in the 19th century by the British manufacturing company Lever Brothers. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Lifebuoy Soap Pronunciation”
Grant, you remember we had that call from Nicole in India about the word buoy, B-U-O-Y?
Oh, yeah, the thing that floats in the water and marks off one part of the water from another, yeah.
Yes, and you’ll recall that her husband is British, and he said, boy, B-U-O-Y.
And she pronounced it buoy, and so they had a little disagreement about that.
And I don’t think she left buoyant exactly.
But one of the things that we didn’t talk about was the confusion that I think we have in this country
because so many of us grew up with life boy soap.
Oh, yeah, life boy soap.
And they don’t say life buoy soap in the ads, right?
Right.
In this country, the predominant pronunciation is buoy, like Nicole says.
But the reason that we don’t say Lifebuoy soap is that Lifebuoy soap was invented in 1895 by the Lever Brothers Company in the United Kingdom.
So that’s why we say Lifebuoy rather than Lifebuoy.
So it kept the British pronunciation even though we also have that product here in the United States.
Yes, that had puzzled me for years and I finally started digging into it and that’s why.
Well, you know, in your family, two or more of you are disagreeing about how to say something.
Martha and I would love to get in on that.
Choose a side and battle it out with you.
