Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
It's Gyro in English. If I spoke Greek it would be yeero. I don't speak Greek.
You don't say "lah-sag-nah", you say lasagna. You don't say "pihzuh", you say pizza. You don't say "cream broolee", you say creme brulee. You don't say "jie-roh", you say GYRO.
Correct pronounciations in other languages have little meaning in this town. (There's a street in Brooklyn named for the Polish nobleman who came here to fight on our side during the Revolution. That street is spelled "Kosciuszko." Do you know how that's pronounced in Polish? Well...fuhgeddaboudit! Because if you don't say Kos-ki-OS-ko, nobody will have any idea what you're talking about).
Funny, Australia's tallest mountain is named after the same guy. And we totally butcher the pronunciation, more like Kozi-osko. Midnight Oil even have a song about it -
Im of greek heritage from Australia, its pronounced "yeeros" here, first i ever heard of "jie-ro" was on an episode of Seinfeld and i had absolutely no idea what they meant lol, i guess as long as everyone understands what "jie-ro" means it shouldnt be an issue, the Greeks in New York seem to be much cooler with stuff like that.....you wouldnt get away with that in Melbourne or Sydney as the Greeks here tend to be perfectionists...which is kinda annoying.
Many words in English are inherited from some other language intact in spelling and meaning and my guess is most of them aren't pronounced like they were in the original language. An example would be "table" (french). I had a gy-ro at the Parthenon Restaurant in Chicago which is supposedly where the sandwich was first served in the U.S., and they pronounced it ji-ro. Why unnecessarily complicate the English language for English learners by adding a new pronunciation for gyro when the old one works just fine?
Why in Spanish do they refer to New York as "Nuevo York".
We refer to cities with Spanish names by their original Spanish names without transaltion, like Los Angeles or Las Vegas, etc. So why do they translate an English-named city? It makes more sense to leave a city name in it's original state, both because it creates more diverse and more recognizable city names, and it minimizes misunderstanding since usually the city's name is in the same language as the country it's in
We pronounce city names incorrectly too, you just don't know about it and think the way you say it is correct.
For example, there is no Moscow. The city is called Moskva in Russian. And the name for Finland is Suomi in Finnish...etc etc.
While we are on the subject of Greek language, Athens is actually Athina.
I've had about 4 or 5 vacations to Greece and whenever I go to a different country I tend to have some lessons in basic phrases, I like to make an effort as Brits are notorious for butchering other people's languages. I'm British by the way. (Note, I said vacation instead of holiday - see I'm trying to fit in With US speak already and haven't moved there yet)
Anyway, I was taught to pronounce Gyros as yeeros (with the 's' on the end) and was understood perfectly when in Greece. I heard other Brits asking for jairose much to the annoyance of the Greeks.
I suppose while in NYC I'd probably say jai row or something similar just to fit in, but would be cringing inside.
I've had to change the way I speak before, when I moved from Yorkshire in the north of England to London in the south, just to be understood, it made life easier. For example, I ordered a Brandy in a pub and the barman had no idea what I was talking about. I pronounced it Brandi and he knew it as Braandee. Made me laugh when a Swiss person I worked with was 'correcting' my English.
In the UK we get around the Gyros problem by calling them Donna Kebabs and 99% of Brits have never heard of a gyros no matter how it's pronounced.
The "correct" pronunciation is that which makes you understood according to local convention.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
