Pronunciation of caching!

[team unicycle]

I'm trying to maintain decorum
But those folk on the GCA forum
Say the word "geocache"
With no sense of panache
So I'm just going to ignore 'em

[Team Wibble]

I have to say this whole phenomenon intrigues me.
America, Europe etc and pretty much the rest of the world says cash.
The official pronunciation of the dictionary is cash, even in an Australian dictionary.
Some Australians have always been taught it is pronounced cash.

And yet, you get people like me, who pronounce it kaysh, and have always done so (even in pre-geocaching days, such as when referring to a computer's cache etc). I'm pretty sure that's how I was taught in school, too.

So where on earth did our odd pronunciation come from??
Where did the "evolutionary split" occur, and for what reason?

[GhostGums]

Its no different to other words with two different pronunciations, like Maroon, Castle etc.

My wife who is an english teahcer reckons its pronunced kay-sh, as it is a french word and its more about the emphasis placed on the a. Thats her story anyhow.

I prefer kay-sh, as it sounds a bit funny saying you are going to find cash hidden in the bush. Sounds like you are up to no good.

[Damo.]

It is but a dialectual variance.
I had a Highschool English teacher in a Scandanavian county tell me that I was saying "Drought" wrong. She insisted it was pronounced "drawt" like the "ought" in "Nought". Maybe that's the correct way too....?

[crane2]

I am a South Aussie in my late 40's. I definitely grew up saying "cash" for a pirate's cache etc. I changed to "kaysh" when I got my first computer in 1985, because that's how everyone around me was pronouncing it. The people, who introduced me to geokayshing said it that way too, so I didn't know any different. Have to agree that a big dose of listening to Americans does get to you though. I had downloaded lots of podcasts and listened to Cachers of the Round Table and Cachemaniacs all the way from the Riverland to Adelaide recently and they almost brainwashed me into cashing until Spindoc came on and brought me back to earth!

[pipes_down_under]

Now I am confused!
To say 'fish' I need to pronounce it 'ghoti'
as in Laugh women motion

Or am I thread drifiting?

[zactyl]

To say 'fish' I need to pronounce it 'ghot' as in Laugh women motion

Ghoti! With a nice side of tchoghs! (match women hiccough)

[gmj3191]

As a Victorian who lived in Sydney for 16 years, I was always coming up against this sort of issue.
In NSW you say Newcastle as New Cahssle
In Vic you say Castlemaine as Casslemain
I'm sure time will change this and they'll eventually both be pronounced the same way.
In NSW we had the Bulli Pass pronounced Bull-Eye, but Victorians would always start out by saying Bullie

I think regional pronunciation is one of those little differences which make life more interesting and I wouldn't be concerned about trying to standardise (or standardize for those who want to be Amercanized( or Americanised for those who don't)).

[chatmanais]

I guess its the same as with a lot of words. I pronounce it kaysh because i was taught the 'a' sound was was longer 'ay' when there was an e ending the word in the same syllable. And generally only the sharper sound without.

Hence i pronounce 'Niche' as neesh. As opposed to Americans and other aussies (also state dependant) pronouncing it as 'Nich'

I am happy to be one of the 80 odd percent of us that pronounce it differently in true aussie style

[gmj3191]

Additionally, if we are interested in the correctness of such matters,
the spelling of the title word of this thread is "pronunciation", not "pronounciation".

[chatmanais]

For any who might also be interested http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wo ... nunciation<p>

Unfortunately there is no mention of cache or of castle...

[Guest]

Just be glad in Australia we have a very small variation of pronuciations, compared to say the UK where you can go 5 miles and it will be completely different, the US is something similar, one would expect due to the vastness of Australia and for that matter the majority of similarities with NZ dialects, the mass migrations and so on to have had profound regional differences but they just don't exist and this is in fact quite odd.

Mind you this isn't the only odd thing about Australia:

http://www.smedg.org.au/DougAdamsOnOz.html

Dictionary.com says cache comes from french origin too:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cache

As with other works like pork...

[Guest]

Unfortunately there is no mention of cache

It does now, aren't wiki's wonderful that you can just edit them

[chatmanais]

<b>Hear hear!</b><p>

A mighty fine read, thanks for all the fish indeed

[chatmanais]

Unfortunately there is no mention of cache

It does now, aren't wiki's wonderful that you can just edit them

<P>
Well done