h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

... 'Burger King'?

Do you say BURGER King

or

Burger KING

We emphasise the king. Our younger friends find this hilarious. So I thought I'd ask H2G2.

Mol

I stress the BUR of Burger, as does everybody else I've ever known.

I suspect you're telling a Whopper.

I'm with Icy on this. Not that I'm a huge burger fan.

Yes, why would you emphasize King? You bunch of freaks!

I know! It's an abomination!

Burger King is a compound noun, a noun made of two or more words. Car park, greenhouse, central heating, etc etc etc.

We tend to stress the first word in compound nouns. The reason why it sounds funny to most people if you stress 'king', is because is doesn't sound like a compound non any more but an actual king of burgers.

Compare:

I went to the GREENhouse to do some repotting.

with

I went to the GREEN HOUSE on the corner to see if Mrs Smith was in.

BURger king

central HEATING.

PP.

So basically this is just further evidence that DH and I are a bit weird.

Thanks all

Mol

A couple were driving to visit Disney World in Florida. The park is located just north of the town of Kissimmee.

The couple soon got into an argument about how the name should be pronounced - 'kiss A me' or kiss seem ME'

They decided to ask a local resident to settle the matter. As they pulled up to the window of the fast food place they asked the girl 'What is the proper way to pronounce the name of this place?'

She leaned out of the window and said very slowly 'BUR ger king'.



F S

Central heating is not two nouns. Central is an adjective.

Yes, and while we're at it, 'heating' is a gerund verb form.

Now now, there's no reason for swearing.

Some English language words have a space in the middle, with the sections before and after the space having entirely different meanings taken separately.

Around here people say something like "berrgerr keeng", but that's because they're French.
So I guess it's not really relevant.

I was hoping they would say Le Roi de Burgois or similar. What do they call a quarterpounder with cheese?

I was hoping they'd uphold France's high standards by setting them all on fire as soon as they open, but hey ho.

Well, the burgers are better than the ones from Quick, which is the French burger chain.

Besides, we wouldn't set them on fire, we would guillotinise them.
Kings.

Us forrin peeples here (at least me) would say Bur-yer KING. Because the letter g is inconsistently pronounced here, could be a hard G as in get, or a soft one. More like your y-sound. If the sentence as a whole is in English, it would be BURger king. With a hard G.

(also, had some good giggles from the thread, thanks for promoting a clean language, Xanatic)

There isn't a Burger King on the Isle of Wight.
There used to be 3 Wimpys, but these have now closed. The nearest one is next to the hovercraft terminal at Southsea now. When I was growing up there was 1.019 (or 1 1/52) McDonalds (one in Newport and one mobile one that would come over just for Cowes Week), but there's 2 of them now and even 2 KFCs. Still no Burger King, though if there were I'd pronounce it 'BURger King'. Still prefer Wimpy, though.

I have known people to crudely pronounce it with a silent 'R' and extra 'g' instead.

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