Seems I'm not the only one annoyed about this. It's got Phil Ball's goat too.
Their lethargic and bland display was only marginally less annoying than the irritating tendency of all English commentators to pronounce Real Madrid's ground 'Berna-bow'. Quite how they have managed to invent this diphthong from the ending 'eu' is anyone's guess, but the sound has been spreading like wildfire through the British media for the last few years, and appears to be there to stay.
I'm guessing it's because whoever started this one off saw an imaginary 'a' between the e and u and, momentarily forgetting that French and Spanish are different languages, pronounced it the way they imagined it to be said in French.
Yeah, that one really gets on my tits too. I'll tell you another one: when they refer to the Real Madrid left back as simply 'Carlos'.
Posted by: Hugh Green | February 27, 2006 at 09:19 AM
I suppose it's similar to (Cristiano) Ronaldo (Dos Santos Aveiro). Everyone says his middle name as if it's his surname, while seemingly also aware that it was inspired by Ronald Reagan.
Incidentally, I saw you picking up on Casillas as "grassy-ass". My Spanish pronunciation isn't really up to much but I presume your problem is the stress rather than the pronunciation per se. If you were to say grassy-ass with the stress on the second syllable (rather like the way Michael McMullen says "Newcastle"), surely that would be a reasonable approximation of Spanish? (or would you prefer a lisping 's' and a little hint of 'l' on the 'y"?)
Posted by: Frank McGahon | February 27, 2006 at 09:42 AM
Yeah, in the case of Cassy-ass it's the stress in the first 'a' that's the problem. If the stress were on the 'i', the second syllable, then it'd definitely be passable, although the 'll'/'y' sound is desirable.
No need for a lisping 's' here at all, though; when there's a letter 's' this sound is only for people with lisps and perhaps people from Andalusia. Of course, with 'gracias', the stress should be on the 'a', and in Spain (as opposed to Latin America) it's generally pronounced with a lisping 's' sound for the 'c', but anything goes, I suppose.
Posted by: Hugh Green | February 27, 2006 at 10:06 AM
Just heard it pronounced Bar-nah-bow in a Today FM piece on Florentina Perez' resignation...
Posted by: Frank McGahon | February 28, 2006 at 10:06 AM
Thinking about this a bit further, pronunciation of 'Berna-bow' by a Nartsoider would be a reasonable approximation of the correct pronunciation. But in the jaws of our friend Michael, well...
Posted by: Hugh Green | March 01, 2006 at 12:22 PM