Home Forums Guitar Discussion Guitar Pronunciation?

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  • #22767
    mrblanche
    Member

    Here’s a funny subject.

    You know how you can see words for years and not be sure how to pronounce them because you’ve never actually heard anyone SAY them? Well, I just realized I’ve never actually heard anyone pronounce the name of two guitars.

    The first is the Epiphone. I actually heard someone pronounce it a couple of weeks ago, and they said, “Ep-i-phone.” Sorry, no “schwa” (the upside-down “e” used in phonetic spellings) available on the keyboard, so just substitute that for the unaccented “i” in the second syllable. I had always assumed it was “E-pif-i-nee.” A word that means “sudden insight.” But the other pronunciation is probably correct.

    The second is Ibanez. Anyone care to suggest the correct pronunciation so I don’t embarass myself somewhere?

Viewing 31 reply threads
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    • #66641
      lee_UK
      Participant

      When will it end?

    • #66630
      1bassleft
      Participant

      Sorry to prolong it, but I always said “Ingwee” rather than “Yengy”. When I wasn’t saying “Ponce”. Have I got it wrong? Not about the “Ponce” bit, obviously…

    • #66622
      lee_UK
      Participant

      Im getting a headache..

    • #66623
      Tim
      Participant

      Tim
      Was
      Always
      Touched by Ingwee’s solo’s

    • #66633
      lee_UK
      Participant

      See = C
      You = U
      Next = N
      Tuesday = well you get the idea.. 😆

    • #66635
      Tim
      Participant

      Is that a cockney thing? Apples and pears, arfur pound and the like…never did understand you lot.

    • #66607
      lee_UK
      Participant

      Ive always pronounced it Yengy, as in ‘See you next Tuesday’ 😆

    • #66626
      Tim
      Participant

      [quote]How does one pronounce Yngwie[/quote]

      …bearing in mind this is a family site.

    • #66638
      1bassleft
      Participant

      Welcome in, CB. Nice to see this one warmed up again. How does one pronounce Yngwie?

    • #66613
      Tim
      Participant

      If one of us had been bright enough to check the website in the first place it’d have saved us a lot of debate, mind you what else do you do on a forum?

      Welcome to the board BTW, I was going to say have a look around but you’re already back to Jan ’06…go you!

      Tim.

    • #66619
      cbates44
      Participant

      I realize the thread is pretty cold, but I just got here. As for the Epiphone, I used to pronounce it Epi-fone. Then I realized it was probably Epif-oh-nee, and felt like a minor idiot. Today I went to the Epiphone site and discovered I was right the first time. The company was at one time operated by Epimanondas (Epi) Stathopuoulo, a Greek. Ergo, Epi, from his given name, and phone from the Greek for sound.

    • #66628
      1bassleft
      Participant

      [quote]I’ve never liked them enough to ever need to ask that question.
      [/quote]

      glw, that’s the funniest post-in of the year so far 😆

      Blanche, I think “yeth” is really pushing it into pretentiousville; it’s not a Spanish guitar, it’s Japanese. Most Spanish (and almost all Latin Americans) don’t pronounce “z” as “th” anyway. That’s just a Castillian thing caused by deference to some short-tongued, long dead, king. I found out pretty quickly in Andalucia that “th th th th th, uno thervetha” talk just made me sound poncey.

      Whatever the phonics, there’s an alarming number of owners who pronounce it “Ibeenhad” 😆

    • #66632
      Tim
      Participant

      I do realise the exact details of broad Yorkshire may be wasted on a Texan, sorry mrblanche.

      I live near a town which is regarded as the centre of the Pennines, a range of hills down the middle of the UK, I once had an American stop outside my house and ask the way to the ‘Pee-9’ sener. I managed to keep a straight face and sent him East, which technically speaking is correct.

    • #66608
      Tim
      Participant

      Well, it’s kind of hypothetical as I play bass and have no money!

      Tim.

    • #66625
      glw
      Participant

      I’ve never liked them enough to ever need to ask that question.

    • #66611
      Tim
      Participant

      Well would you, really? I do most of my guitar shopping in Leeds…theres no way I’d ask took look at an “ee-bahn-yeth”. It’s more a case of
      “Can a look a t’Ibe-nez’ mate”

    • #66636
      mrblanche
      Member

      Oddly enough, this subject has come up a number of times on various Ibanez forums. The feeling is that “ee-bahn-yeth” is correct…but no one uses it. That last “th,” by the way, is voiced, as in “this,” rather than unvoiced as in “with.”

    • #66629
      1bassleft
      Participant

      This deserves total congrats for the barmiest thread, only in the New Year 😀 (I’m enjoying this, sorry Lee).

      The “Ibanez” thing does all add up as you say, Blanche, and it would be “Eebahnyez” in Spanish and “Eebahnyez” in Japanese (AFAIK) but I’ll just be a Philistine and call them “Eyebunez” as before.

      I reckon we think “Tays-coh” because of our background in Romance languages, Blanche. In English or Japanese, there’s no reason for it. Bing’s coming back into the argument… “You say eevther, I say eyevther, you say neevther, I say neyevther” Let’s call the whole thing off.

      As for the umlaut, well it does look German and metal and hard but, I’ll give them the benefit. The umlaut turns an “o” from hot into hurt, so I suppose it’s “Moturhead” for people who need phonics to pronounce words of three syllables. Not that I’m suggesting that people with pork-chop sideburns who habitually stick their heads in stage monitor bins have trouble with three-syllable words. (Don’t flame me, I love Motorhead 😆 )

      I reviewed a band called “Tin Gods” who had an umlaut over the “o”. I asked them if it meant “Tin Goods” and was a satirical comment on shopping as the new religion (typically arsey journo question). They looked at me like I was a typically arsey journo type and explained that they’d run out of the normal “o” letter on the Letraset sheet when they were knocking up the posters 😳

      Anyhoo, we’ve done “Ibanez”. What about Tokai and Greco?

      My money’s on “Tok-eye” and “Greh-ckoh”

      😆

    • #66645
      mrblanche
      Member

      [/quote]

      is that Texas in Paris?

      Are we there yet?[/quote]

      There IS a Paris in Texas. As well as an Iraan (yes, that’s spelled correctly), Reno, Italy, etc. When you settle an area pretty quickly, names tend to be descriptive or derivative.

      I, personally, live in Cedar Hill. It’s the highest spot between the Red River and the Gulf of Mexico in eastern Texas. If you listen to radio or watch TV in the DFW Metroplex (a name that drives most non-Texans up the wall), the signal came from Cedar Hill.

      But we DO have names to determine if someone is from Texas:

      Waxahachie
      Mexia
      Bexar
      Boerne
      Groene
      Alvarado
      Rio Vista.

      Only natives or long-time residents will get them right, since many defy logic or phonics.

      Just got my Ibanez SA160 from UPS. Love it.

    • #66652
      lee_UK
      Participant

      [quote=”glw”]Also, why do Motörhead have that umlaut over the second letter o like that?[/quote]

      Probably a Gimmick

    • #66624
      lee_UK
      Participant

      [quote=”mrblanche”]

      I live in Texas, by the way. .[/quote]

      is that Texas in Paris?

      Are we there yet?

    • #66617
      mrblanche
      Member

      Hey, I like that rubbish punchline!

      Teisco is almost certainly “tays-co.”

      Ibanez IS a Spanish name. Although the details are a little dodgy, the Ibanez family built guitars for Hoshino before the Spanish Civil War. During the war, the factory (and the family) disappeared in what has been described as a “fairly messy worker uprising.” So the Ibanez workers got to experience a preview of what has gone on continually since then: Their jobs all went to Japan. It’s not clear if Hoshino bought or just continued to use the name Ibanez, but I’m sure somewhere along the line they paid something to someone somewhere just to avoid future paper-engorged meetings in courtrooms around the world.

    • #66656
      glw
      Participant

      Also, why do Motörhead have that umlaut over the second letter o like that?

    • #66664
      1bassleft
      Participant

      Never heard of the term “Enya” apart from a dodgy British singer of folky warblings. Sounds nicer than “tilde” though. I have this abstract thought of our Aussie Mod Mike taking a girl called Enya out for a dance.

      The extremely rubbish punchline of “Waltzing me Tilde” is coming up, so I’d better shut up before I type it.

    • #66620
      1bassleft
      Participant

      My turn to phonic about – nice thread for twisted heads 😆

      “Epiphone” would be from the Greek “phon” meaning “sound” and the Greek prefix “epi” meaning “above” or “additional to”. Stretching it a bit, I suppose the intention was to market it as “better sound”.

      Problem is, English-speaking people mangle Greek and Latin so badly that there’s no way of knowing what’s right. I reckoned the “viva voce” oral exam was pronounced “veevah voschay” but everybody else reckoned I was a pretentious git (they called it a “vighvah”). Seeing as “telephone”, “Linguaphone” etc are pronounced as they are in English, I’d say “Eh-pee-phone” is the correct guitar moniker. “Epp-i-fon-ee” is 6th January, when Catholic kids get their Christmas presents.

      As for Japanese guitars, darned if we know. There’s a lot of subtle nuances in pronunciation of SE Asian words. I once had a go at “Happy New Year” in Cantonese but, judging by the guy’s face, I’d just said something rude about his mother. For Ibanez, I habitually say “eyeb‘n’ez” but, from the little I know about Japanese, that’s dead wrong. Locally, it would be more like “ee-bahn-yez”. I think that individual syllables aren’t emphasized in Japanese, and that “n” is a “nyuh” rather than “unnn”; enya or not. It would fit with the early history of Ibanez, as it sounds a bit like Spanish; regarded as the best makers of acoustics in those days.

      “Tiesco” is a real git because vowel digraphs aren’t a big feature of the language. In the (almost) words of Bing Crosby, “You say Tyes-co, I say Teas-co (atch, I say Tays-co) … Let’s call the whole thing off”. It’s probably Ti-esco, but who cares? Made up, stupid name anyway. “Hamer” is definitely Haymer and not Hamer because this one’s got to follow simple English rules. If a vowel is followed by a single consonant; it’s long (slimer, taper, sloper) and if it’s followed by a double consonant; it’s short (slimmer, tapper, slopper).

      EKO is an Italian outfit, so I’m on firmer ground. It’s more like “Echo” or “aicho” than “Eeko”, for sure.

      I’d be much happier if multi-lingual string-strummers looked in and passed comment, though 😀

      Just before Lee’s train runs over his snoring body, I must mention the importance of being enya to Tim. It’s quite festive, too. The “enya” is the squiggle over the letter “n” in Spanish. Can’t do it here, so imagine n is the squiggly one:

      “Prospero ano nuevo” = Happy New Year
      “Prospero ano nuevo” = Happy New Arsehole

      Big difference in the look you’ll get from the paella-server when you say either of these two phrases.

    • #66615
      mrblanche
      Member

      An “enya” (properly called a “tilde”) is a curved line over an “n” in Spanish that make the n into an “ny” sound. As in that perennial guitar picking song, “Malaguena.” That’s “mal-a-gwain-ya.”

      I live in Texas, by the way. That may be distorting my view of how any Spanish name should be pronounced.

    • #66660
      SB
      Participant

      While we’re on pronunciation, here are a couple of brands that have bugged me.

      Teisco is pronounced “TIE sco” not “TEA sco”.

      Hamer is “HEY mer” not “HAM er”.

      And who knows about EKO? Is it “Echo” or “EEEK o”.

      BTW Lee, I think your train just pulled in. sb

    • #66612
      lee_UK
      Participant

      Somebody give me a nudge when the train gets to my St-ay-chion.

      Fa-nk Que… 😆

    • #66610
      Tim
      Participant

      I might possibly have meant the Z… ones as I know I can never actually read that name on my drummers cymbals.

      “Ee-bahn-yez” doesn’t sound right to me, maybe if I was from Dorset it might, what exactly does an enya do? (no elevator-music jokes please)

    • #66483
      mrblanche
      Member

      Sabian? What about Zildjian (or however it’s spelled!)?

      I’ve never seen an “enya” over the n in Ibanez, so I assume it’s not “Ee-bahn-yez”.

    • #66499
      Tim
      Participant

      While we’re (kind of) on the topic, I still daren’t talk about Sabian cymbals as I’m never sure I pronounce it correctly.

    • #66505
      Tim
      Participant

      Unless I’ve been sounding like a tool for a long time now Ibanez is phonetic: I-ban-ez or maybe I-ba-nez (one or the other not that knowledgeable about phonetics) I’m sure someone on the forum will be quick to shoot me down if I’m wrong! While I’m sticking my neck on the line…yes, it is Ep-i-phone. I hope.

      Tim.

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