The way British people say Lieutenant
They pronounce it "Leftenant".
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Only when they salute with the left hand.
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While giving the traditional "tosser" gesture with their other hand.
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MovieChat Forums > Eye in the Sky (2016) Discussion > The way British people say Lieutenant
I don't understand why those English people can't speak English correctly!
"Smokey, this is not 'Nam, this is bowling. There are rules. "
-Walter Sobchak
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And you can? No offense but the British are the ones who speak English close to the actual English. Americans and all others speak the dumbed down form of it. Even the British are going that way. Today's modern English is so plain and simple with no originality.
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It is because it is a French word, introduced into English, and modern French pronounces it the American way, but old French, and by that I mean going back a thousand years, pronounces it "left tenant". Dont forget England was conquered by the French speaking Normans a thousand years ago, and they spoke old French.
cool story
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It's good to see someone knows their history.
Good for you!
They pronounce it "Leftenant".
That's because that's how it *is* pronounced, based on where the word comes from.
Americans pronounce the first syllable as "loo", apparently on the assumption that it's somehow related to the Modern French word "lieu" in the phrase "in lieu of", meaning "instead of" or "in the place of", but that's incorrect.
The "u" actually used to be a "v", and it's related to the word "lief", as in the phrase "I'd as lief not ...", meaning "I'd rather not ..." or "I'd prefer not ...". Yeah, it's archaic, so you don't hear it much outside stories by people like Sir Walter Scott, but in Modern English it's also turned into the word "leave", meaning "permission", as in the phrase, "You have my leave to do what you think best", which has nothing to do with "leave" as in "depart".
So a "lieutenant" (or "lief-tenant") was actually the person who gave soldiers permission to do things. And yeah, the "f" sound is actually correct, and the "oo" sound is a simple misunderstanding of what the word really means.
You might very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment. share
The Brits are a strange folk lol.
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The North remembers.
Lef-ten-ant
That's correct... they were British in the film