MovieChat Forums > The Grifters (1991) Discussion > What's with the hard 'g' in Los Angeles?

What's with the hard 'g' in Los Angeles?


That was annoying and distracting, and just not necessary.




I want the doctor to take your picture so I can look at you from inside as well.

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I'm wondering the same thing.

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Growing up in the 60's and listening to old radio shows(1930's thru 1960's)lately, that's how they pronounced it back in the day. Somewhere in the late 60's and 70's there was a big P.C. push and Hollywoodland wanting to be cool that led to the Spanish pronunciation.

Is you is, or is you ain't, my constituency?

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But even the Spanish donĀ“t pronounce it that way. the g in "angeles" is pronounced as an H sound.

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it becomes the spanish 'j'

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It's a way of showing she's not from those parts, I think. Nobody here pronounces it that way.

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[deleted]

Just the way Bogart - er, Sam Spade - said it in Maltese Falcon.

It's part of a long and interesting evolution of the city's name pronunciation: http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jun/26/local/la-me-0626-then-20110626

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Nothing to see here, move along.

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Yeah, and that was almost 50 years earlier. This movie wasn't set in the Forties.




I want the doctor to take your picture so I can look at you from inside as well.

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Nope, but it was rife with call-backs to the classic noir era: hard fast dames, scarves draped over bouffant hairdos, half-lit scenes, conspiracies on a nighttime train trip - Benning even said Gloria Grahame was her model for this role.

Using the hard-g pronunciation of Los Angeles almost exclusive to that era makes sense in that context.

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Nothing to see here, move along.

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Yeah I think it was an issue of style. They did a great job keeping that noir feel.

~~~"Who do you think you're dealing with? Guess again."~~~

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>>Benning even said Gloria Grahame was her model for this role.

Interesting! I was thinking Marilyn Monroe.

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In addition, the movie is about con artists who need to use an ANGLE for what they do. Just a possibility... :)

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Up through the '60s a lot of people said it that way, but more people have always pronounced it with a soft G.

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