Your pronunciation of niche
Replies: 71 - Last Post: Feb 24, 2013 8:00 AM Last Post By: misterbee
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Leela, out of intrest, are there any oher pre-1800 borrowings from French with ch that are pronounced with sh in British English?In the US we pronounce change, charge, couch, march, with a ch sound. Post-1800 borrowings from French are pronounced with an sh sound, like the ones shilgia just listed, or chanteuse, louche, barouche. That rule applies even with the combination -iche. We pronounce riches and ostriches to rhyme with niches (in the old US pronunciation), for example.
"Niche", as was stated above, dates in English from c. 1610. That's the only pre-1800 borrowing with final -iche that I can think of.
Let me make it clear that I'm not saying neesh is wrong. Just that nitch is still acceptable in the US, and that I don't see any reason to change.
Lets not get into ceviche, lichee, lichen, or agrichemical.
56
Don't forget cliche, which I have heard mispronounced "clitch."I found a site that lets you search by word endings. It turned up these:
affiche, cliche, corniche, enniche, fendliche, fiche, iliche, miche, microfiche, niche, ouananiche, pastiche, potiche, poureliche, quiche, riche, rolliche, ultrafiche, yliche,
The ones I had to look up:
enniche is to place in a niche.
fendliche (obsolete) Fiend-like. Chaucer used it. "This lettre spake, the quene delivered was Of so horrible a fendliche creature" I can't find a pronunciation, but I'll guess that the "liche' was "lich-eh," with a German "ch" as in nicht.
iliche adv. [oe., fr. as. gelīc. cf. alike.] alike. [obs.] Looks ike it was sometime written i-liche.
- miche* a kind of French bread.
ouananiche a small landlocked salmon of Lake St. John, Canada, and neighboring waters. Oxford says (more or less) wanna-neesh.
potiche a porcelain vase of Japanese or Chinese style . po-teesh.
poureliche [<ME.poureliche; <poor + -ly2.] in a poor manner or condition. Chaucer again, so I assume pronounced as in fendliche.
rolliche We have the word "rolliche," also from the Dutch. Few of my friends have ever heard it. Webster gives two other spellings, "rollejee" and "rollichie," meaning a little roll. Rolliche is not "sausage made in a bag of tripe," as Webster defines it. It consists of little chunks of beef sewed up in a ball of tripe about as large as a grapefruit and pickled. It is sliced and fried.
yliche a version of illiche
Nutrax
The plural of anecdote is not data.
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"fendlich" must be an antonym of freundlich which is familiar to me from my German/Austrian business contacts as they "sign" each email with "Mit freundlichen Grüßen" .Chiche! (which I hasten to add is a kind of kebab in France)
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Pourliche -- French slang for a tip (pourboire), comes from pour licher or lécher to lick.Chiche -- French for stingy or cheap.
Also used (well, not much any more) as Chiche! in the meaning of "let's try it" when it's something that might be difficult.
Potiche -- a vase, but also used for a person, usually female, who is decorative but not very useful. There was a recent French movie by that name.
Miche -- round bread, not like pita but like this. Scroll down to the bottom of the page.
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