Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers

[venta]

On New Year's Eve, I was at a party where the conversation turned to Tex-Mex food. Someone mentioned a mysterious food item: chi-poht-lay. Huh?

A little querying determined that she was saying the word I'd pronounce as chi-pottle. Well, she's from Michigan, these things are only to be expected.

But then other right-thinking, British persons began saying that no, of course it was chi-poht-lay. No one says chi-pottle. I briefly considered they were winding me up, but it seems Wikipedia agrees with them.

Now, I'm pretty sure I've ordered things in restaurants that required me to say "chipotle", and no one has ever corrected me, queried it, or looked at me funny. Presumably no one has ever repeated my order back and chi-poht-layed at me, either.

So, have you all been secretly mocking me[*]? Humouring me? Assuming I knew and was mis-pronouncing for comic effect[**]? Have you all, in fact, been making the same mistake?

[Poll #1808125]


[*] Mocking me on the topic of smoked peppers, that is. Other categories of mocking are outside the scope of this question.

[**] I do this a lot with words. This means that when I genuinely don't know how to pronounce a word, no one realises. Which is nice, but potentially problematic when I'm in a situation where I'd normally quit mucking about. Di-TRY-tus, apparently, not DEE-tri-tus. ChrisC tells me he's been aware of me saying detritus wrongly for years, but assumed it was deliberate.

Comments

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

I'm fairly sure I've never heard anyone say it, nor needed to say it myself, but I would probably have said "chip-pottle" if pressed.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Well, you're a sensible person who knows things about food, so I shall stop feeling as if the whole world knew and I didn't!

(On which note (knowing things about food, not peppers): thanks for sharing the crinkle cookie recipe before Christmas. I made some and they were great!)

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

Ooh, they're nice, aren't they? I sort of want to make some more quite soon, except I also want to eat healthily for a bit, to get rid of some of the excess winter weight and as a respite from Christmas eating. And I also want to work my way through the updated Mrs Beeton's cookbook that my brother-in-law gave me for Christmas, especially the honey madeleines. These ambitions are not compatible, sadly.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Since I started cycling to work, my baking output has dramatically dropped. This isn't part of some healthy-living plan, but just the difficulty of physically wrangling cake to work on a bike.

Which is a shame. Apparently my colleagues think it is a shame, too :(

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

Yes, my colleagues would be disappointed if I gave up baking. When I left my job at the OU a while back, my HoD popped his head round the door on my last day, with a slice of cake in his hand (I'd brought in one last farewell!), and wished me luck, paused, looked dolefully at the cake, and said "I don't think we'd realised how much we're going to miss you..."

It was _very_ good cake.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

This, except I'd go for chi-poht-ley. :)