Crokey or crokay?

[Mike Lyle]

If June comes, can Wimbledon be far behind? But the Brit newspapers
seem to be jumping the croquet gun for some reason. I've always said
[crokey]: surely this modern [crokay] is a spelling mispronunciation,
isn't it?

[T.H. Entity]

Post by Mike Lyle
If June comes, can Wimbledon be far behind? But the Brit newspapers
seem to be jumping the croquet gun for some reason. I've always said
[crokey]: surely this modern [crokay] is a spelling mispronunciation,
isn't it?

Anyone for bankaying hall with a parky floor?

--
THE

[Pat Durkin]

Post by T.H. Entity

Post by Mike Lyle
If June comes, can Wimbledon be far behind? But the Brit newspapers
seem to be jumping the croquet gun for some reason. I've always said
[crokey]: surely this modern [crokay] is a spelling mispronunciation,
isn't it?

Anyone for bankaying hall with a parky floor?

We say 'ban-kwet hall and par-'kay floor (or 'par-ketry). Saves a bit
of wonder, but I see your message posted with a time 6 minutes earlier
than Mike's post.

Is it you or he or I? Posting right now at 55 minutes after the hour by
my computer, but my watch, which is slow, is at 54 minutes.
Pat

[Steve Hayes]

Post by Pat Durkin

Post by T.H. Entity

Post by Mike Lyle
If June comes, can Wimbledon be far behind? But the Brit newspapers
seem to be jumping the croquet gun for some reason. I've always said
[crokey]: surely this modern [crokay] is a spelling mispronunciation,
isn't it?

Anyone for bankaying hall with a parky floor?

We say 'ban-kwet hall and par-'kay floor (or 'par-ketry). Saves a bit
of wonder, but I see your message posted with a time 6 minutes earlier
than Mike's post.
Is it you or he or I? Posting right now at 55 minutes after the hour by
my computer, but my watch, which is slow, is at 54 minutes.

Read at 9:14 pm by my computer clock.

[Pat Durkin]

Post by Mike Lyle
If June comes, can Wimbledon be far behind? But the Brit newspapers
seem to be jumping the croquet gun for some reason. I've always said
[crokey]: surely this modern [crokay] is a spelling mispronunciation,
isn't it?

Where are you stressing the word? I say cro-'kay, with stress on last
syllable. For US it is normal, I think. The needlework is cro-'shay.
But 'ban-kwet is thoroughly USanized.

How can you rush the season so? French Open is on the way.

[j***@yahoo.com]

Post by Mike Lyle
If June comes, can Wimbledon be far behind? But the Brit newspapers
seem to be jumping the croquet gun for some reason. I've always said
[crokey]: surely this modern [crokay] is a spelling mispronunciation,
isn't it?

Crikey! As long as I can remember, it's been [krou'keI] in America.
That's the only pronunciation in M-W and AHD on line. I'd never heard
your cavalier, devil-may-care BrAus ['kroUki].

[Mike Lyle]

Post by j***@yahoo.com

Post by Mike Lyle
If June comes, can Wimbledon be far behind? But the Brit newspapers
seem to be jumping the croquet gun for some reason. I've always said
[crokey]: surely this modern [crokay] is a spelling mispronunciation,
isn't it?

Crikey! As long as I can remember, it's been [krou'keI] in America.
That's the only pronunciation in M-W and AHD on line. I'd never heard
your cavalier, devil-may-care BrAus ['kroUki].

Dear me! To you and Pat alike, the d-m-c stress is on the first syll.
As, indeed, in "crochet" which I can say without fear of contradiction
is cisatlantically and southpacifically pronounced ['kroUS@]. I'm in
two minds about parquet...no, by God! Make that _three_ minds: COD5
maintains Oxford's cavalier tradition by giving only "'parkit". Those
were the days. OED1, though, allows a Frenchified version, but
indicates it isn't naturalized.

So glad you caught the allusion: I was afraid I might have to come back
and explain that BrEtcE "Wimbledon" is the same place as AmE
"Wimbleton". Fortunately, AUE has done its work on this one.

[Wood Avens]

Post by Mike Lyle
If June comes, can Wimbledon be far behind? But the Brit newspapers
seem to be jumping the croquet gun for some reason. I've always said
[crokey]: surely this modern [crokay] is a spelling mispronunciation,
isn't it?

Now you mention it, it was certainly [crokey] when I was a gel.
Rhymes with chokey.

[Steve Hayes]

Post by Wood Avens

Post by Mike Lyle
If June comes, can Wimbledon be far behind? But the Brit newspapers
seem to be jumping the croquet gun for some reason. I've always said
[crokey]: surely this modern [crokay] is a spelling mispronunciation,
isn't it?

Now you mention it, it was certainly [crokey] when I was a gel.
Rhymes with chokey.

And we did the Hoquet Poquet.

[Paul Wolff]

Post by Wood Avens

Post by Mike Lyle
If June comes, can Wimbledon be far behind? But the Brit newspapers
seem to be jumping the croquet gun for some reason. I've always said
[crokey]: surely this modern [crokay] is a spelling mispronunciation,
isn't it?

Now you mention it, it was certainly [crokey] when I was a gel.
Rhymes with chokey.

It was when I was too (mutatis mutandis). But it isn't now. And I
speak with the authority of one with two mallets and two battered balls
-- not a full set, I'll admit.

The excellent Oxford croquet web pages mention Chambers suggesting
[participle - Ed.] that the word is indeed French in origin and related
to Norman crochet (whoever he be) as well as to pall mall or pell-mell,
golf and billiards:

http://www.oxfordcroquet.com/history/origins1.asp

The same site speculates on the possible advantage of using depleted
uranium weighted mallet faces, and reprints a 1940s 'How I invented
everything except beer' article by Lord Tollemache.

[Father Ignatius]

I speak with the authority of one with two mallets and two battered
balls -- not a full set, I'll admit.

"He was a few hoops short of a croquet set."

[John Dean]

Post by Mike Lyle
If June comes, can Wimbledon be far behind? But the Brit newspapers
seem to be jumping the croquet gun for some reason. I've always said
[crokey]: surely this modern [crokay] is a spelling mispronunciation,
isn't it?

Crikey, that's a poser.

[Mike Lyle]

Post by John Dean

Post by Mike Lyle
If June comes, can Wimbledon be far behind? But the Brit newspapers
seem to be jumping the croquet gun for some reason. I've always said
[crokey]: surely this modern [crokay] is a spelling mispronunciation,
isn't it?

Crikey, that's a poser.

No, no! It comes quite naturally, I assure you.

[Raymond S. Wise]

Post by Mike Lyle
If June comes, can Wimbledon be far behind? But the Brit newspapers
seem to be jumping the croquet gun for some reason. I've always said
[crokey]: surely this modern [crokay] is a spelling mispronunciation,
isn't it?
--
Mike.

I was able to find the "crokey" pronunciation (accented on the second
syllable) in one dictionary online, the Random House Unabridged at
www.infoplease.com , where it was given as a British variant.

More interesting to me was what I found in *The Century Dictionary* at
www.century-dictionary.com . The Century gives for "croquet" and
"croquette" an "o" which is a weakened version of the "long 'o'": "as
in abrogate, eulogy, democrat." Nowadays, in American English at least,
these are all pronounced with a schwa, but back then the "o"s in these
words were closer than they are now to the "o" of "home." The Century
uses an "o" with a dot under it for its weakened form of "long 'o,'"
while the closest it gets to indicating a schwa in pronunciation is to
show two dots under "a," "e," "i," "o," or "u."

By contrast, I found no current dictionary online which had any
pronunciation for "croquet" and "croquette" which did not have a "long
'o'"--that is, the same vowel that is found in "home." This indicates a
change in the American pronunciation of "croquet" and "croquette" over
the years, involving a strengthening of the "o."


--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA

E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com

[Wood Avens]

Post by Raymond S. Wise

Post by Mike Lyle
If June comes, can Wimbledon be far behind? But the Brit newspapers
seem to be jumping the croquet gun for some reason. I've always said
[crokey]: surely this modern [crokay] is a spelling mispronunciation,
isn't it?
--
Mike.

I was able to find the "crokey" pronunciation (accented on the second
syllable) in one dictionary online, the Random House Unabridged at
www.infoplease.com , where it was given as a British variant.

The BrE "crokey" Mike's talking about is accented on the first
syllable, unless I've completely misunderstood. It's not about
CRO-key versus cro-KEY (or even cro-KAY), but between CRO-ky amd
CRO-kay.

[Will]

Post by Wood Avens

Post by Raymond S. Wise

Post by Mike Lyle
If June comes, can Wimbledon be far behind? But the Brit newspapers
seem to be jumping the croquet gun for some reason. I've always said
[crokey]: surely this modern [crokay] is a spelling mispronunciation,
isn't it?
--
Mike.

I was able to find the "crokey" pronunciation (accented on the second
syllable) in one dictionary online, the Random House Unabridged at
www.infoplease.com , where it was given as a British variant.

The BrE "crokey" Mike's talking about is accented on the first
syllable, unless I've completely misunderstood. It's not about
CRO-key versus cro-KEY (or even cro-KAY), but between CRO-ky amd
CRO-kay.

What she said. I say CRO-kay. I would assume cro-KEY or cro-KAY to be
either AmE or AusE. Maybe it's a poTAYto / poTARto thang.

Will.

[Mark Brader]

Post by Will
What she said. I say CRO-kay. I would assume cro-KEY or cro-KAY to be
either AmE or AusE. Maybe it's a poTAYto / poTARto thang.

"AR"?! Okay, maybe it's a poTARto / poTAHto thing...

[Mike Lyle]

[...]

Post by Will

Post by Wood Avens

Post by Raymond S. Wise
I was able to find the "crokey" pronunciation (accented on the second
syllable) in one dictionary online, the Random House Unabridged at
www.infoplease.com , where it was given as a British variant.

The BrE "crokey" Mike's talking about is accented on the first
syllable, unless I've completely misunderstood. It's not about
CRO-key versus cro-KEY (or even cro-KAY), but between CRO-ky amd
CRO-kay.

What she said. I say CRO-kay. I would assume cro-KEY or cro-KAY to be
either AmE or AusE. Maybe it's a poTAYto / poTARto thang.

What they said. I'm entirely confident that that particular Random
House version is wrong. Neither British pronunciation ever takes a
second-syllable stress. My AusE is the same as the BrE, and I learnt it
as AusE not BrE: the only way I can imagine an Aus speaker stressing
the second syll is if he learned the word from an American.

[Raymond S. Wise]

Post by Mike Lyle
[...]

Post by Will

Post by Wood Avens

Post by Raymond S. Wise
I was able to find the "crokey" pronunciation (accented on the second
syllable) in one dictionary online, the Random House Unabridged at
www.infoplease.com , where it was given as a British variant.

The BrE "crokey" Mike's talking about is accented on the first
syllable, unless I've completely misunderstood. It's not about
CRO-key versus cro-KEY (or even cro-KAY), but between CRO-ky amd
CRO-kay.

What she said. I say CRO-kay. I would assume cro-KEY or cro-KAY to be
either AmE or AusE. Maybe it's a poTAYto / poTARto thang.

What they said. I'm entirely confident that that particular Random
House version is wrong. Neither British pronunciation ever takes a
second-syllable stress. My AusE is the same as the BrE, and I learnt it
as AusE not BrE: the only way I can imagine an Aus speaker stressing
the second syll is if he learned the word from an American.

It was my error, not RH's. It uses a variant of the traditional
American system of indicating pronunciation where the apostrophe
follows the stressed syllable. I'm so used to IPA now that when I saw
the RH pronunciation, I put the accent where it would have been if the
pronunciation had been given in IPA.


--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA

E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com