BS: Pronunciation of 'buoy'

Subject: BS: Pronouciation of 'buoy'
From: Ed.
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 01:25 PM

Here in the UK 'Buoy' is pronounced as 'Boy'. I was just watching a US TV programme where it was pronounced as 'Boo-ee' or something. Is that usual?

Ed

Subject: RE: BS: Pronouciation of 'buoy'
From: Ballyholme
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 01:26 PM

Nope. That's how they say it. Been here 10 years and I still can't get used to it.

Subject: RE: BS: Pronouciation of 'buoy'
From: Cluin
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 01:28 PM

How `bout "boe-oy"? (about 1 1/2 syllables)

Subject: RE: BS: Pronouciation of 'buoy'
From: MMario
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 01:37 PM

boo-ee; boe-oi; boe-eye

Subject: RE: BS: Pronouciation of 'buoy'
From: *daylia*
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 01:40 PM

Here in Canada it's pronounced either "boo-ee" or "boy". And now I know why. Thanks!

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Pronouciation of 'buoy'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 01:48 PM

But do they pronounce "buoy" differently from the way they pronounce "boy"? Because there are lots of different ways of saying that. (Try Norfolk for example.)

Subject: RE: BS: Pronouciation of 'buoy'
From: Naemanson
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 01:49 PM

This question came up at the shanty sing last Saturday. Sinsull sang the Eddystone Light and then mentioned the version John Roberts does where the mermaid is sitting on a buoy and then goes on to explain that is a channel marker not a juvenile male.

There is a wide range of accents and pronunciations here in the States as elsewhere. I grew up saying boo-ee but lately the word has evolved to something similar to boy-ee.

Subject: RE: BS: Pronouciation of 'buoy'
From: greg stephens
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 01:51 PM

The "boo-ey" pronunciation is used by some people(at least) in the Western Isles of Scotland.

Subject: RE: BS: Pronouciation of 'buoy'
From: Schantieman
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 02:01 PM

My father-in-law used to sing that mermaid song too. Depends on pronouncing them the same!   Getting the kids to spell it right is more of a challenge!

Steve

Subject: RE: BS: Pronouciation of 'buoy'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 02:04 PM

So do people pronounce the two words differently from each other in some places?

Subject: RE: BS: Pronouciation of 'buoy'
From: MMario
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 02:11 PM

both words have multiple pronounciations within the same town where I grew up. Mostly different pronounciations for the two - but sometimes the same, but not always the same pronounciation used for both - if you follow me.

Subject: RE: BS: Pronouciation of 'buoy'
From: Ebbie
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 02:15 PM

I grew up in Oregon, pronouncing it boo-ee. The two are kind of interchangeable, I think. In context, everyone knows what you're talking about. Doesn't seem important to me.

At least one of my dictionarys gives it as 'boo-e', alternately as 'boi'.

There is a restaurant in Depoe Bay (Hey, Art!) whose rest rooms are marked 'Buoys' and 'Gulls'.

Subject: RE: BS: Pronouciation of 'buoy'
From: *daylia*
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 02:24 PM

I've heard it most often pronounced 'boy', so that it rhymes with 'toy'.
Maybe that's the North American version? Second most common is 'boo-ee', rhyming with --- hmmmm --- 'chop suey'. And come to think of it I HAVE heard it pronounced 'boy-eee' - exactly as that's written! So that makes three alternatives. And yes, I've heard different pronunciations within the same small towns as well. Must depend on the ethnic background of the singer/speaker?

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Pronouciation of 'buoy'
From: MMario
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 02:29 PM

*may* I think rather then *must* - as I know it was pronounced at least two different ways within my own family. *grin*

we were a polyglot bunch though...and are more so now that we've added california, texas, mississippi, georgia and new york influences to our speech!

Subject: RE: BS: Pronouciation of 'buoy'
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 03:02 PM

'Ave yer got a loit buoy?
Alan Smethurst

Subject: RE: BS: Pronouciation of 'buoy'
From: Naemanson
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 03:56 PM

Kendall is a much better expert on Downeast but I think the "proper" pronunciation on the coast of Maine is "boo-ee". But it is very dependent on regional accents. When I fake a Maine accent I accent the first syllable and just let the second fall where it may. Without the accent the word becomes more like boi (as in boil).

Subject: RE: BS: Pronouciation of 'buoy'
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 04:52 PM

Newfoundland? Bye??

Subject: RE: BS: Pronouciation of 'buoy'
From: GUEST,Blind DRunk in Blind River
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 05:05 PM

Okay its, like, pronouced this way:

My cousin Louie
Woulda drowned
But he grabbed on a booey
His dad said phooey!
Cos he thinjks Louie
Is screwy
And so do I cos....

Cos Louie is a dipwad!

Okay? Good thing for bouys or I would have lost my dipwad cousin eh?

Rock on.

BDiBR

Subject: RE: BS: Pronouciation of 'buoy'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 05:19 PM

Once again, do the pronunciations of the two words move in parallel? Obviously people in different parts of the world pronounce "boy" in a whole range of different ways - but is it correct to assue that once you've hear them pronounce "boy" that is the same way they probably pronounce "buoy"?

So far we've had one indication, from Mmario, that in at least one place you couldn't make that assumption.

Once complicating factor might be that, in some places inland, where you don't find many buoys, there might be people who had learnt the word from books, and could have made up a pronunciation from the way it was spelt, which was different from however it was they said "boy" in that part of the world.

Subject: RE: BS: Pronouciation of 'buoy'
From: katlaughing
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 06:01 PM

I think you're better off not making any assumptions. I know here in the Rocky Mountain West, I've heard it both boy and boy-ee, as well as boo-ee, and even if someone does say boi for a juvenile male it's no guarantee they will call a water marker the same thing.

My Rog, from New Hampshire, says boo-ee, but then he burr-ees things, too and that's one I'd never heard when growing up. We always berry-eed things in the ground.

Subject: RE: BS: Pronouciation of 'buoy'
From: GUEST,ClaireBear
Date: 17 Jan 03 - 12:12 PM

So I take it, then, that I am the only person on the planet who says "bwoy" (one syllable)?

This at the insistence of my mother, whose other enunciatory insistences (not for one moment to be confused with preferences) included "hwayle" for whale -- which caused me to refer to them only as cetaceans as long as Mother was alive, since I couldn't possibly enunciate hwayle to her satisfaction; and Feb-roo-ary -- *never* Feb-you-ary! This always seemed a bit over the top to me, as we grew up in California where *everything* is casual, including diction.

Oh, I almost forgot her pronunciation of The Big Easy: Nyew (not Noo!) Oar-lyuns (one syllable, pronounced like the last syllable of onions), Louie - zya (one syllable again, with a short "a") - nuh. Any mention of "Louise" in this context will cause my mother to hurl down a lightning bolt from on high. I know; it's happened to me several times, usually when I slip up and forget to say "cetacean" (easy to do when you're singing cetaceaning chanteys).

Claire

Subject: RE: BS: Pronouciation of 'buoy'
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 17 Jan 03 - 12:23 PM

In order for the following joke to work (incidentally, a classic example of true folk lore as you just change the names to make it contemporary) 'buoy' needs to be pronounced a la mode anglais:

Elton John fell off his yacht sailing across the Channel. Bernie Taupin shouts "Hold on Elton ... I'll throw you a buoy." Elton replies, "Not now you prat, I'm f**king drowning!"

Subject: RE: BS: Pronouciation of 'buoy'
From: Ebbie
Date: 17 Jan 03 - 12:28 PM

A linguist I know said that 'hwale' as opposed to 'wale' in this country is strongly regional, that hwale is west coast- he even gives the continental dividing line- and wale is east coast, especially northern east coast.

Subject: RE: BS: Pronouciation of 'buoy'
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 17 Jan 03 - 12:29 PM

Which country is that?

Subject: RE: BS: Pronouciation of 'buoy'
From: Felipa
Date: 17 Jan 03 - 03:28 PM

I think both "boy" and boo-ey, rhymes with "chop suey"(isn't that how Jim Bowie/Bowie knife was pronounced, not like David Bowie?)are used in America.
I grew up in New York and always said "boy" -as a youngster as well as now, and I remember that's how Ed McCurdy (Canadian if I recall correctly) pronounced "buoy" in the Eddystone Light, rhymes with "ahoy". So I was really surprised on a sailing course at Long Island (NY) this summer to hear everyone saying buoy the chop suey way. It sounded really odd to me!