How do you pronounce the names of watches?

[enioldjoe]

So, what's the story then? Can we produce a definitive list for the correct pronunciation of watch names?

There are some watch forums which have had a stab at this but there appears to be some differences of opinion on the matter.

Can the 'Great PH' do any better? There are after all some great minds on here...

Here is a list of names which I think make a good starting point for discussion; please feel free to add any others you feel should be included.


A. Lange & Sohne
Audemars Piguet
Baume & Mercier
Blancpain
Breguet
Chopard
Ebel
Franck Muller
Glashutte
Girrard Perregaux
Hartge Cough
Heuer
Hublot
Jaeger-Le Coultre
Omega
Panerai
Patek Philippe
Sinn
Ulysse Nardin,
Vacheron Constantin
Zenith

[Dominic H]

Over the years I've heard the most variations on Heuer/Tag Heuer and Jaeger le Coultre. Some of which have questioned my clients ability to read....

[adaptive]

enioldjoe said:

So, what's the story then? Can we produce a definitive list for the correct pronunciation of watch names?

There are some watch forums which have had a stab at this but there appears to be some differences of opinion on the matter.

Can the 'Great PH' do any better? There are after all some great minds on here...

Here is a list of names which I think make a good starting point for discussion; please feel free to add any others you feel should be included.


A. Lange & Sohne
Audemars Piguet
Baume & Mercier
Blancpain
Breguet
Chopard
Ebel
Franck Muller
Glashutte
Girrard Perregaux
Hartge Cough
Heuer
Hublot
Jaeger-Le Coultre
Omega
Panerai
Patek Philippe
Sinn
Ulysse Nardin,
Vacheron Constantin
Zenith

Heres my opinion - probably way off

A. Lange & Sohne = A lanje and sson
Audemars Piguet = oared-mars pee gway
Baume & Mercier = bowm and mer see ay
Blancpain = blank pan
Breguet = bray gay
Chopard = show pard
Ebel = ebb ell
Franck Muller = frank mull lerr
Glashutte = glass hoot
Girrard Perregaux = jee rard peer ay geot(as in peugeot)
Hartge Cough = hart co
Heuer = who-err
Hublot = hub low
Jaeger-Le Coultre = yay ger le coo chure
Omega = o may gah
Panerai = pan err eye
Patek Philippe = pah tek fill eep ay
Sinn = sin
Ulysse Nardin = you lee say nar dan
Vacheron Constantin = vash err on con stan tin
Zenith = zen it

[lowdrag]

Again, it depends which country you are in as well. Here in France "yeager lecoultre" is pronounced completely differently with a slurred soft g/j twice. About the nearest I can write it is "shay-shay le coultre".

[BigAlinEmbra]

Heuer is "hoy-er"

[erasuretim]

try here:

http://www.chronometrie.com/watchsounds/watchsound...

Regards

Tim

[carter711]

I always thought Omega was 'O mega'

How do you say Stowa?

[lowdrag]

A. Lange & Sohne = A lanje and sson should be Lan-ger ay zoh-ner
Audemars Piguet = oared-mars pee gway oh-de-mar pee-gay
Baume & Mercier = bowm and mer see ay
Blancpain = blank pan
Breguet = bray gay breg-ay
Chopard = show pard
Ebel = ebb ell ay-bell
Franck Muller = frank mull lerr
Glashutte = glass hoot glass -huut-er
Girrard Perregaux = jee rard peer ay geot(as in peugeot) jirrar pair-ay-go
Hartge Cough = hart co
Heuer = who-err hoy-er
Hublot = hub low hoo-blow
Jaeger-Le Coultre = yay ger le coo chure yay-ger le cool-treh
Omega = o may gah
Panerai = pan err eye
Patek Philippe = pah tek fill eep ay leave the ay off the end - as you've put it it's spanish.
Sinn = sin
Ulysse Nardin = you lee say nar dan you-lees nar-dah
Vacheron Constantin = vash err on con stan tin
Zenith = zen it

It needs a knowledge of languages though because Glashütte with the umlaut is almost impossible to spell phonetically in english as are really many of the above especially the second part of ther Jaeger name.

[adaptive]

ahh well, not too bad - at least I wont look a complete spanner when I go window shopping now

[markomah]

lowdrag said:

A. Lange & Sohne = A lanje and sson should be Lan-ger ay zoh-ner
Audemars Piguet = oared-mars pee gway oh-de-mar pee-gay
Baume & Mercier = bowm and mer see ay
Blancpain = blank pan
Breguet = bray gay breg-ay
Chopard = show pard
Ebel = ebb ell ay-bell
Franck Muller = frank mull lerr
Glashutte = glass hoot glass -huut-er
Girrard Perregaux = jee rard peer ay geot(as in peugeot) jirrar pair-ay-go
Hartge Cough = hart co
Heuer = who-err hoy-er
Hublot = hub low hoo-blow
Jaeger-Le Coultre = yay ger le coo chure yay-ger le cool-treh
Omega = o may gah
Panerai = pan err eye
Patek Philippe = pah tek fill eep ay leave the ay off the end - as you've put it it's spanish.
Sinn = sin
Ulysse Nardin = you lee say nar dan you-lees nar-dah
Vacheron Constantin = vash err on con stan tin
Zenith = zen it

It needs a knowledge of languages though because Glashütte with the umlaut is almost impossible to spell phonetically in english as are really many of the above especially the second part of ther Jaeger name.

I agree with lowdrag on all of these, but shouldn't Blancpain be "Blaw pah"?

[VetteG]

Iv'e always struggled with the pronunciation of IWC

G

[lowdrag]

VetteG said:

Iv'e always struggled with the pronunciation of IWC

G

I'll help.............

Eeee - dooble - vay - say

That's the french way!

[uriel]

erasuretim said:

try here:

http://www.chronometrie.com/watchsounds/watchsound...

Regards

Tim

They're some interesting pronunciations of Rado and rolex!

[cyberface]

Massive minefield this. We must be a different lot in here than the PHers in General Gassing.

Off-topic? No. There was a huge discussion of some American news broadcaster (given that the timing was right and there are a lot of City boys on PH I guess it was the feature Bloomberg were doing, which I saw and noted) pronouncing 'Nissan' as 'Neee-sonhh' with the accent on the first syllable and a super-nasal 'sonhh'.

This caused a riot of disagreement and some derision, but some USAian popped in to say that due to the general makeup of America being a bunch of immigrants from all over the world (not ignoring the indigenous peoples, but they are truly a minority now, sadly - no political comment from me here so please stay on topic...) - the reason is easy - Americans like to pronounce foreign names as they would be pronounced in their native country by a native speaker (this, of, course, done reciprocally, would cause utter confusion and offence - if I didn't know what state a particular USAian came from, and did a bad version of his accent, it could be seen as taking the piss)

In the UK, and most of the western European states that have had a few wars and intermingling, 'borrowed words' are commonplace and re-pronounced to fit our own easiest method of pronunciation.


The trouble is that the world of haute horlogerie is truly global and there's a log of dick-swinging going on. On global forums, there'll always be some fool who will argue about the pronunciation. It's different in different countries most of the time, since pronouncing some of the big names correctly in English can be a bit tricky (I always find that Glashütte is difficult... the umlaut ü should sound like the well known (in English, sadly) 'Führer' and the e at the end is pronounced, leading to 'glas-hyou-teh' with no emphasis on the 'a' in 'glas' but German's more subtle than that and my approximation is not right). Equally, as long as you can communicate what you're talking about... that's what matters...

I've always thought that thinking oneself superior because one pronounces the name of a watch slightly closer to the owner of the brand a little bit pathetic and small minded, really. I certainly wouldn't correct someone on a public forum to cause humiliation. Unless you're truly fluent in all the languages of the world that the watches come from, there will always be some brand with a name that has a sound only that language uses. It's usually fairly easy for English speakers and Swiss / German (sometimes) / French watches, but think of the trouble a young Japanese businessman is going to have with Longines. It'd sound like he had the wrong trousers on.


OK then so I have a question. What's the story with Tag Heuer? I've usually pronounced it 'tag hoi-er' as in the fact that the TAG is an acronym for 'techniques d'avant garde' and 'heuer' is the surname of the bloke who founded it, who I believe was Swiss German, and the word itself is german for 'year' or something to do with time. I've been rudely corrected in two directions - one that it's 'taahg hoi-er' because 'tag' is german for 'day' so the watch name means 'day this year' (fair enough explanation, but ignores the bloke who started the firm), and another that it's 'taahg hewer' because 'tag' is german for 'day' and they don't know the other word is german so go phonetic.

The last correction I just brush off as foolishness. But the first one... Wikipedia states that the 'TAG' acronym is pronounced 'taahg' as per the german for day. So if LVMH had a hand in editing Wikipedia then I'm wrong. Weird as hell since I'm sure I heard an interview with Mansour Ojjeh ages ago as head of the TAG group referring to the company as 'TAG' pronounced as per dog-tag, which is why I pronounce it the way I do.

Anyone got a definitive, non-Wiki answer? I've heard all sorts in watch shops - I'm not particularly fond of TAG watches but they're very popular and you always hear people talking about them. I've heard (from head sales guys / ladies, not YTS kids) 'tag hoi-er', 'taahg hoi-er', 'tag hewer', 'taahg hewer' and a rather bizarre 'taahg-euurrr' as if it were French (think 'add ze uuurbss')

[Dominic H]

[quote=cyberface]
Anyone got a definitive, non-Wiki answer? I've heard all sorts in watch shops - I'm not particularly fond of TAG watches but they're very popular and you always hear people talking about them. I've heard (from head sales guys / ladies, not YTS kids) 'tag hoi-er', 'taahg hoi-er', 'tag hewer', 'taahg hewer' and a rather bizarre 'taahg-euurrr' as if it were French (think 'add ze uuurbss')



[/quote

Definitive ruling.
Yep,an ex-girlfriend was an account manager with Tag Heuer in the late 90's. Tag was always pronounced TAG as in dog-tag. As cyber states it has nothing to do with tag (German for day), as it reflected the ownership by Techniques D'Avant-Garde.

Edited by Dominic H on Friday 27th June 18:39

[enioldjoe]

Result!

So we now know that TAG is pronounced......"Tag" ( and this wasn't even on my list )

Back to the minefield, troops!

[lowdrag]

I speak German, French, some english (so they say!) and am learning Spanish and trying Japanese, but the minefield is not actually describable in writing. "Tag" for day, is pronounced targ, but TAG is an acronym and pronounced as it is written. Heuer is, as above, pronounced hoy-er. Like Cyberface says, Glashütte is like führer, but not many english can get their tongues around it properly with it mostly coming out like Fur-rer instead of fyu-rer. Even then that isn't right but about as near as I can get.

Americans are a law unto themselves, with 31%, during the first Gulf War when asked to point to Iraq, pointing to France. I am mightily relieved that the army knew otherwise! One very amusing story last year at Watkins Glen concerns an attractive american lady who was at the same dinner table. She was asking about life in the UK and, quite innocently, I said that in my home town of Leicester there was a large population of Indians. Well, you can guess the rest; she thought that Indians only existed in the USA and we strung it out for over 30 mins with the description of the Teepee villages and the rest of the problem with night-time noise from war dances. Her husband twigged but she lapped the while thing up. So how do americans pronounce watch names? I'd rather not try and go there! Oh go on - they do say Brett-ling for a starter!

Edit: and as for cars Hyundai is pronounced Hunday by our ex-tea drinking cousins.

Edited by lowdrag on Friday 27th June 19:21

[cyberface]

Dominic H said:

cyberface said:

Anyone got a definitive, non-Wiki answer? I've heard all sorts in watch shops - I'm not particularly fond of TAG watches but they're very popular and you always hear people talking about them. I've heard (from head sales guys / ladies, not YTS kids) 'tag hoi-er', 'taahg hoi-er', 'tag hewer', 'taahg hewer' and a rather bizarre 'taahg-euurrr' as if it were French (think 'add ze uuurbss')

Definitive ruling.
Yep,an ex-girlfriend was an account manager with Tag Heuer in the late 90's. Tag was always pronounced TAG as in dog-tag. As cyber states it has nothing to do with tag (German for day), as it reflected the ownership by Techniques D'Avant-Garde.

Edited by Dominic H on Friday 27th June 18:39

Excellent, the incident in question involved a loudmouth years back when my 'best watch' was my 2000 anniversary Speedmaster and this guy had some flashy Tag, I was politely admiring his watch, and mentioned that I got bought a base model Tag by my Dad as an 18th b'day present (which was a hell of a stretch for my Dad back then, I was chuffed to bits, painted on 'gold' and stretchy bracelet regardless). He immediately sneered at my pronunciation and loudly explained that 'TAG' was pronounced 'taahg' - didn't I know that 'tag' was German for 'day' ??? I politely replied that I thought the TAG referred to Techniques d'Avant Garde as per fact, quietly - he brushed that off with a contemptuous laugh and 'different company mate, nothing to do with the watches'.

All good fun, shouldn't take it too seriously. I'm guilty of inverse snobbery myself, sometimes (usually irritating boors who have bought expensive but not special watches for status symbol reasons only - especially if the watch in question was a steel watch with a quartz movement). Hell, it's a bit of pointless fun otherwise we'd all be wearing quartz digital watches with no branding to argue about the pronunciation of!!!

[hugoagogo]

lowdrag said:

A. Lange & Sohne = A lanje and sson should be Lan-ger ay zoh-ner

it would be 'und', shirley?

(and not forgetting the 'Ah' at the beginning)

[lowdrag]

hugoagogo said:

lowdrag said:

A. Lange & Sohne = A lanje and sson should be Lan-ger ay zoh-ner

it would be 'und', shirley?

(and not forgetting the 'Ah' at the beginning)

Absolutely correct! Getting my languages mixed is sometimes par for the course, like the other day I asked someone in english "who had "marked" the goal", translating literally from french to english! Apologies would be in order except eith I am not Shirley or you actually meant surely.

Edited by lowdrag on Friday 27th June 22:59