[Roger Slater]

My "instinctive" pronunciation is maKAB. I might then silently rumble a bit in the back of my throat, but not so you'd notice.

[Ann Drysdale]

I always pronounce it à la Française.

If I found myself in the sort of company where I would be sneered-at or thought "posh" for doing so, I would say "dance of death" instead.

But then I enunciate the "r" in "February" and the "d" in "Wednesday and I give "Saturday" three syllables - so perhaps I am not to be trusted.

[W.F. Lantry]

"maa caab"

And are you sure about that french pronunciation? Never heard that one...

[Janice D. Soderling]

If you are asking me (about the French pronunciation), I copied it from the internet thinking it was better than I could approximate. So take it with a grain of salt.

Thanks Roger, Ann and Bill. We are still about neck and neck.

[John Whitworth]

As Ann says. It's French, and hasn't been Anglicized like Paris or cul-de-sac (do Americans say cul-de-sac?) so it should be pronounced the French way, more or less. I would rhyme it with 'garb' and 'bicarb'.

Janry, Febry...

[Michael Cantor]

Anybody who went to New York City public schools in the forties was force-fed awful rhymed lyrics to such chestnuts as Danse Macabre, in order to provide us with a bit of couth. But I still remember:

The rooster crows at dawn you know,
telling the skeletons where to go.
Danse Macabre by Sant-Saens...

and Macabre was ma-CAB-re. Mrs. Bousefield insisted on it.

(I am also available for readings of Morning was dawning and Peer Gynt was yawning, and Greig was washing his face.. and the lovely tone poem Barcarolle from Tales of Hoffman, written by Offenbach and others. The shit that stays with you for seventy years or so absolutely amazes me.)

[Duncan Gillies MacLaurin]

The French way.

Duncan

[Roger Slater]

Originally Posted by Ann Drysdale

I always pronounce it à la Française.


But then I enunciate . . . the "d" in "Wednesday

I wasn't aware that anyone pronounced it that way. The Oxford Dictionaries onine give what is said to be the British pronunciation without the "d" being sounded.

[Brian Allgar]

Originally Posted by Roger Slater

I wasn't aware that anyone pronounced it that way. The Oxford Dictionaries onine give what is said to be the British pronunciation without the "d" being sounded.

Ah, but that's clearly an unreliable source, Roger. I'm told they give "online" without the "l" even being written.

[John Whitworth]

mundy, choosdy, wensdy ... satdy...

What DOES macabre rhyme with? Nothing is not an acceptable answer. Everything rhymes with something or you're just not trying.