Fun Beer Mispronunciations or Misinterpretations

Semantics: when you want to be technically right but actually wrong.

It's part of the lexicon, man.

 

There are good points made in that well-written article, and they are pretty close to the same point that @marquis makes with regard to Scotch Ales that aren't brewed in Scotland. But semantics, schmentanics! We all know what is being said, rightly or wrongly.

 

Am I the only one who thought the beer glass name 'nonic' rhymed with tonic? Took me years to find out it was actually the 'no-nick' glass.

 

No. It isn't?

 

Hoegaarden. 9 out of 10 bartenders won't know what you are ordering if you pronounce it correctly.

 

Having been an employee of The Abbey I will tell you this is a daily occurrence. The guys I feel bad for are the boys from Societe, they get their names butchered more often than not.

 

I've always wondered why the United States seems to be the one country on the planet full of people that choose to not learn how to pronounce things properly. My only second language is Dutch (and I speak worse than most toddlers) but that doesn't prevent a European beer enthusiast from familiarising yourselves with the basic rules of pronunciation in French, Dutch, and German.

 

I don't mean to go too far in excusing the insularity of many Americans, but how far are France and Germany from you exactly? It's over 1000 miles from me to a non-English speaking country (and, I actually do think that most Americans can pronounce Spanish decently). It's fairly obvious that the utility of foreign languages is substantially lower for the average American vs the average European.

 

Nice read but irrelevant to the post.

 

People around here that don't know craft very well just call every New Belgium beer "Fat Tire," referring to different beers in the lineup as 'a different fat tire beer.' Also, Boston Lager is always a "Sam Adams."

 

no offense but other cultures butcher english words as well. so i dont really see a point. u know what u know, which is typically what u grow up around. europeans have experiences with many different languages and cultures in a close region. we dont have that opportunity (we have many diff regional cultures and pronunciations but thats a diff topic).

 

My profile says the Netherlands, but that's just because it's where I live. I'm not European at all: I'm from Vancouver, actually, which is even further than you are from any place where there is a sizeable minority within the region that speaks a language besides English. Living in British Columbia never prevented me (or many others I know from the area) from foregoing their laziness and showing a little bit of respect and effort to take 30 seconds to clarify how a couple of words are said by the people that speak them more often.

Sure, a lot of these beers and places and beer styles have Anglicised versions of them (like Köln/Cologne, as someone said); but some places don't (like Amsterdam) and most names of the beers on here don't (see: most Belgian, Dutch, and German beers). My Dutch is awful, but it's not that hard to learn how to say dubbel or Duvel properly.

 

People in our town always butcher Lagunitas (even though there is a phonetic spelling on most of their packaging.)
"Laganootis" "Lagwanitis" "Lagoontas" etc.
They don't even attempt Narragansett. They usually just say "Gimme one them $2 dollar pints, bubba."

 

Fair enough, although having done a fair bit of traveling myself and observing other tourists, it's absolutely not only Americans who don't bother to try to learn a few basic phrases and pronunciation when traveling.

 

finally got around to trying a Framboise the other day at the bar and struggled through it because I'm an idiot. "fram... framboy... uh fram...bwah? yeah, the frambwah"
bartender: "frambwahz?"
"oh uh, yeah"

 

lmao at "Laganootis"

 

I overheard a guy today ordering a "Tres Piss-toe-lays".

 

"Bocks are made from all the leftover sludge in the bottom of the fermenter"