How to pronounce Cunard??

[bazzaw]

While watching the 50's film about Cunard Queen Elizabeth earlier today, I noticed that the narrator called Cunard - "Quenard" . I tend to say "Koonard" and I have heard it called "Knard)

 

Any thoughts??

 

Barry

[Cunard's Queen]

Que-nard.

[brigittetom]

I've always felt the proper British pronunciation was Que-nard....and yet I always, myself, say K-nard. Don't know why. :)

[bazzaw]

I probably really tend to subconsciously (unconsciously??) alternate between Quenard and Koonard - not really knowing which is correct - but I was corrected once by an American/Canadian (can't remember which!) who insisted it is Knard.

 

But we all know what the Americans do to English :) Why DO they say "I could care less" - when they really are meaning "I couldn't care less!! ?? :)

 

Barry

Edited March 16, 2015 by bazzaw

[brigittetom]

I probably really tend to subconsciously (unconsciously??) alternate between Quenard and Koonard - not really knowing which is correct - but I was corrected once by an American/Canadian (can't remember which!) who insisted it is Knard.

 

Barry

 

Well Barry....now that you say that.....I believe in Halifax, they do pronounce it Knard. They would know. :)

[Underwatr]

Every time I've heard it pronounced onboard it was Que-nard. But I doubt that's how Sir Samuel pronounced it.

Edited March 16, 2015 by Underwatr

[Salacia]

I probably really tend to subconsciously (unconsciously??) alternate between Quenard and Koonard - not really knowing which is correct - but I was corrected once by an American/Canadian (can't remember which!) who insisted it is Knard.

 

But we all know what the Americans do to English :) Why DO they say "I could care less" - when they really are meaning "I couldn't care less!! ?? :)

Barry

 

LOL, what do "Americans do to English", this American asked the Australian?

 

BTW, there are approximately 321,362,789 people in the US. My suspicion is that some use the expression "I could care less [implication being - I could, but I can't be bothered] and some use the expression "I couldn't care less [implication being, I gave it some thought, but decided it wasn't worth caring about]. Subtle differences, perhaps, but with the same conclusion.:)

Edited March 16, 2015 by Salacia

[pepperrn]

I pronounce it "Que-nard" and would find it hard to change... But have heard Knard (but rarely in the UK).

 

How would Sir Samuel pronounced his own name? His ancestors were German (arrived Pennsylvania in the 1680s). His great-great grandfather was Thones Kunders, who changed the family name to Conrad after settling in the New World.

One of his sons, Henry Conrad, had a son who called himself Samuel Cunrad.

His son, Abraham, changed his name again, to Cunard.

After 1776 Abraham Cunard left Pennsylvania for New York, and then fled north to Nova Scotia in the 1780s. There, in 1787, his second child was born and named Samuel Cunard * .

 

I suspect (but what do I know?), despite all the changes, a hard "K" sound might have survived, rather than a "Que" sound. And so Brigittetom and the inhabitants of Halifax may be correct, and it should be Knard.

 

However, this won't stop me sailing on "Que-nard" ships :)

 

 

 

 

(*for more on this, read "The Ocean Railway" by Stephen Fox)

Edited March 16, 2015 by pepperrn

[MicCanberra]

I tend to alternate between Coo-nard and Kun-ard, I suppose my subconscious just picks one.:o

[PunkiC]

I always say Que-nard.

 

Cunard sounds too much like excrement in French.

[ToadOfToadHall]

Que-nard.

 

Bur Mrs Toad always says Qun-en-ard. I've no idea why she says that.

[balf]

I've always felt the proper British pronunciation was Que-nard....and yet I always, myself, say K-nard. Don't know why. :)

 

Which Halifax is that?

 

David

[lannp]

Which Halifax is that?

 

David

 

Samuel Cunard was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

[lannp]

Here is a better picture.

[ovccruiser]

and I have heard it called "Knard)

 

Any thoughts??

 

Barry

 

That's how you have to work to afford the fares :D

[maz48]

Cue-nard. I never thought others might say it differently but I guess I forgot accents. Coo-nard sounds completely wrong:confused:.

[Jim Avery]

G'day Barry. Count on you for the unusual thread. Ok, I say Koo nard. My English relations say Kyew nard. The worst is some friends in Florida that insist on calling the line Kun nerd.:eek::D:D. Who cares as long as they bring me my Martoonies.

[Seago2]

That's how you have to work to afford the fares :D

 

Well played :p

[MicCanberra]

Well played :p

 

Agreed, although I felt it needed an expletive in front of it.:D

[Plongeur0415]

Reminds me of the old joke about the ships officers wives talking, one said "what does your your husband do?" She replied "he works for Knard" the first wife says "well my husband works quite hard too, but what does he do?".

[maggie3]

When we sailed on the Queen Victoria a few years ago, announcements by staff during the evening shows pronounced the name kyew nard. That's when we began to use that pronunciation.

[MicCanberra]

When we sailed on the Queen Victoria a few years ago, announcements by staff during the evening shows pronounced the name kyew nard. That's when we began to use that pronunciation.

 

I will wait and see how they introduce it to me and then refer to that from then on (if I can remember).:p

[brigittetom]

I will wait and see how they introduce it to me and then refer to that from then on (if I can remember).:p

 

You might as well practice now. On board, the staff always says Que-nard. :)

[FMAXROBs1-]

I am an 84 year-old American, who never travelled via Cunard. Before transatlantic flights became common in the 1950s or 1960s, many of the older generation around me went from England to the US and back via Cunard. Maybe 1/3d were English. While Cunard was not a steady conversational topic, discussing one's (Americans & English) travel arrangement frequently was okay. If they ever mentioned non-Cunard ocean liners it made no impression. Cunard seemed the gold standard .

 

They always said ' k'-NARD ', never 'CUE-nard '. Who knows how the original Cunard family said their name? But think about it. Which pronunciation is easier? Do English-speakers normally choose an easier pronunciation over a harder one?

 

Only Britons who assume that some harder pronunciation makes a word sound more posh. 

 

First, 'jaguar' became ' JAG-yew-arr ' instead of 'JAG-warr'. Next, the habit spread to 'bilingual', ie  ' bye-LING-gyew-all' instead of ' bye-LING-gwal '. then 'Guatemala' became ' gyew-AHT-erh-mah-lah ' instead of ' GWAH-terh-ma-la '. Eventually, some Britons may refer to their late monarch as the ' kew-EEN ' vs. the ' KWEEN'. Until they discover the island of Anguilla, it remains for now

' ann-GWILL-ah '. 

 

My money is on the easier pronunciation. Even most Britons prefer not to over-pronounce. 

[Pushpit]

14 minutes ago, FMAXROBs1- said:

They always said ' k'-NARD ', never 'CUE-nard '. Who knows how the original Cunard family said their name? But think about it. Which pronunciation is easier? Do English-speakers normally choose an easier pronunciation over a harder one?

 

I am very distantly related to the Ismay family, and some of my relatives knew members of the Cunard family, and in particular Major Sir Guy Cunard who died in 1989 in his native Yorkshire. We always used the same pronunciation mentioned in the Collins Dictionary, which using the IPA is rendered as "kjuːˈnɑːd". I think I put a bit more of a final r in it, but the English language is slowly moving away from fully pronouncing double consonants, so Collins is probably closer to being correct on this.