Pronouncing Mayonnaise

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Salem Rosales calling from Whittier, California.

Salem, welcome to the show.

Hi, Salem, what’s going on?

Not much. My family and I have a debate going on here.

So my mom had five kids, and we all grew up saying mayonnaise.

I’ve never, ever, ever heard anybody say it another way, mayonnaise.

But then she drove my stepdad, and he also had kids.

And his whole family say mayonnaise.

Mayonnaise.

Yeah, it’s really weird.

I’ve never heard that.

And so he says, you know, they say, look at the spelling.

It’s mayonnaise.

It’s not mayonnaise.

My stepdad will say that.

I’m like, no, it’s mayonnaise.

So every once in a while we’ll be making a sound.

You’re like, hey, can you pass the mayonnaise?

I don’t know what you’re talking about.

I see the mayonnaise.

And so I had never heard anybody use it.

So that was just, it was just kind of a jokey disagreement, whatever.

So I want to clear this up.

Is it mayonnaise? Mayonnaise? Have I said it wrong my whole life?

Oh, dear.

It’s more, it’s worse than you think, Salem.

It is worse.

It is a lot worse than you think.

For one thing, it’s three syllables.

Well, for some people, it’s three syllables.

The dictionaries I’m looking at say three syllables.

You’ve heard me about dictionaries and their pronunciations.

Yeah.

Well, sure, but I’m just saying.

They privilege the pronunciations of white Easterners.

Right.

But if you look at any dictionary, I have not seen one that offers two syllables.

Yes, Salem, here’s the problem.

This is a borrowed word from French, and people have borrowed it any way they pleased.

And it looks weird.

It still has all the signals that it’s a foreign word.

It is not fully anglicized, and the pronunciation is all over the place.

Is that first syllable may or ma?

Is it two syllables or three syllables?

And do you put the accent on the first syllable or the third syllable?

Like the English are more likely to say mayonnaise instead of mayonnaise.

Okay.

So, yeah, it’s a mess.

There is a dialect map that shows that people in Montana, Nebraska, and Wyoming, you’re more likely to say the three-syllable pronunciation.

And in the south, you’re more likely to say the two-syllable pronunciation.

But everywhere else, it’s about 50-50.

The little pockets here and there of the two-syllable or the three-syllable version.

Sure, in Kentucky we said mayonnaise.

I grew up saying mayonnaise.

You did?

Yeah, not mayonnaise, but mayonnaise.

But who knows?

I didn’t get my education until I was well into my 20s, and I’m not even sure it stuck.

And I didn’t even get mayonnaise until I was an adult.

We had Miracle Whip.

Oh, yeah.

I was raised in a house that distinguished the difference.

Miracle Whip wasn’t mayonnaise.

Oh, really?

Yeah, people.

Oh.

Yeah.

This is a mess.

Yeah, I was thinking in my house.

Miracle Whip is not mayonnaise.

Even in French, the pronunciation has changed a lot over the many years that it came out of this small city.

I think it was a small port city called M-A-H-O-N, Mahon, something like that.

The pronunciation has changed a lot.

You can actually look in the historical dictionaries and see that there’s even some argument among French speakers how to pronounce it.

Because some people expect it to be a little more like the name of the city, and other people do whatever they like to it because they don’t care about the etymology of the word.

Yeah, and it depends if you’re talking about the Anglicized version of that name or the French.

So this is the show where you come for a decision between two choices, and we give you six choices.

Yes.

I think you’ve opened a jar of worms.

Something like this.

Use that for a condiment.

Do you at least feel a little bit better?

Yes, because I know I’m not right, but I’m also not wrong.

Yeah.

Exactly.

The three-syllable pronunciation, surprisingly enough, is not as common as the two-syllable pronunciation, even among educated folk.

There may be some people who’ve adopted the pronunciation because they believe that it’s better, but they didn’t come by it naturally.

They learned it from a book rather than learning it through their environment.

Oh, yeah, and if you’re ordering, you want the food, so you just say it faster.

Yeah, yeah, give me mayonnaise, right?

So you say—

Thank you so much.

Yeah, sure.

So here’s the thing.

Go back to the other part of your family that says it the other way and say, well, the truth is we’re probably all wrong.

It should be three syllables, and we should say it with a French accent.

So let’s just have a sandwich.

Or change the menu.

Yeah, change the menu.

Good idea.

Okay.

Thank you guys so much.

Yeah, sure.

Thank you, Salem.

Bye-bye.

Have a great day.

Okay, you too.

It’s never easy.

It’s never easy.

It’s never simple.

Even when you call people who’ve done the digging like we have, no.

Is that Barrett’s law?

It’s never simple.

Barrett’s law.

Barrett’s law is there’s no way to resolve these questions for other people.

You have to resolve them for yourself.

Oh, I like that.

English.

She is very complicated.

Give us a call about her.

877-929-9673 or email words@waywordradio.org.