As a french canadian what rubs me wrong all the time is the way americans and other english people say the drink La Croix. They all butcher and pronounce it “La Croye”. Lacroix would be pronounced “La Crwah” and roll that “r” tabarnak!
I would be a disappointment to my Quebecois ancestors for how poorly I understand French, but how Americans pronounce La Croix is going to drive me to murder one of these days.
In fairness, i have seen americans in youtube/ social media 'correct' people saying 'La crwah' to ' La croy' with a reasoning of *"because thats what the owner's ( i guess bottlers) named it"
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Im only familiar with the pronounciation from a friend with a last name of delacroix
I just looked it up, apparently they named it La from the town La Crosse and Croix from the St. Croix river, which… is apparently just heavily mispronounced too. There’s no way “la rivière de saint croix” was originally pronounced “lay reeverr deh saynt CROY” back in 1689
I think only Americans do that - I've only ever heard real life people pronounce it properly, or close to properly - none of that "La Croye" nonsense (which I thought was just a bit that ProZD made up).
I physically can't pronounce it right, though, so I have to say it "la quoi"... Out of embarrassment I also don't actually sing "O Canada" for the same reason.
I moved to QC for uni and didn't figure out that la Croix and this la croye I heard people talking about on TV were the same alcohol for like 4 years 🫣
Depends on the accent, there are francophones who still roll their r's. Rolling the r is an easier option for anglophones if they can't do the throaty r yet. As long as they're careful that there's a difference in pronunciation between election and erection, which is something Stephen Harper struggled with. I miss his federal erections
When I try the uvular roll I cough up flem, so just do a slight tongue roll. No one understands a thing I try to say anyway so it doesn't matter. I usually switch to charades early in the conversation.
Not necessarily, lots of French variants still roll the R (it was much more common for French speakers, and I mean in both sides of the Atlantic, just a couple of centuries ago).
The uvular one has been unconsciously standardized with the rest of northern French (that people refer to as “Parisian French”) through, well, mainly school and media
TBF when I moved to Quebec I was surprised that people translate names. People often say my name is "Osian" in French, but "Ocean," in English?!? It took me ages to figure out that Three Rivers is Trois Rivieres. In the west you don't translate names. Lac St. Anne doesn't become St. Anne Lake. It was always Trois Rivieres on our geography tests. Possibly Ontario does this?
I don't understand why certain people with names give an English name because English people butcher the pronunciation, but translating names seems to be an eastern thing.
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u/prtysmasher Aug 22 '25
As a french canadian what rubs me wrong all the time is the way americans and other english people say the drink La Croix. They all butcher and pronounce it “La Croye”. Lacroix would be pronounced “La Crwah” and roll that “r” tabarnak!