After I butchered the pronunciation of my Motobecane and Ideale saddle for 30 something years, an old bike mechanic suggested I get it right:
Moto-Beh-Kahn Ee-dee-el-ay
He wasn't French, but he sure did make them sound cool. To this day I still don't get it right.
Sorry for the off topic comparison, but a similar thing happened when I bought my first Porsche - the salesman said, "now that you own one, you should start pronouncing it correctly - 'Porsha' - not 'Porsh'."
Whatever - just drive it I figured - same as my Moto-BEE-Kane with it's Ideel saddle.
Dave from Maine Not-so-sunny sub-zero - why oh why do I live here?!?
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 21:31:29 EST From: Mercurys43@aol.com To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Subject: [CR]French Names and Pronunciations Message-ID: <a6.41c520fe.2d336101@aol.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Precedence: list Message: 18
CR Listers and Listees,
One of my New Years resolutions for 2004 is to stop "butchering" the pronunciation of French bike terms (brands and components). Would someone please step forward and help me a bit. What are the correct pronunciations of the following: Motobecane, Follis, Simplex, Huret , Ideale, AVA, Phillipe, Mafac, Bertin and Gitane? My spellcheck keeps suggesting I change Mafac to Mafia!!!! Also, all Francophiles...feel free to add some more of your favorites. I'll keep a running list and post it in a week or so.
Let's get it right in 2004.
David Allen
Marietta, GA Near the Big Chicken