Another Pronunciation Quiz

[TAKerry]

The topic of Wil-eeze vs. Wil-liss has been brought up before and I believe the proper sound is the latter. How was/is REO spoken?

1. Ree-Oh

2. R  -  E  -  O

[Gunsmoke]

Ree-oh and Wil-leze. General English rule is words ending with YS are pronounced EZE. Now of course you will recognize the discrepancies often occurring between "Proper English" usage, and "Americanized English". Words like Colour/Color, Labour/Labor, Favourable/ Favorable are examples, and it would not be unusual to start pronouncing YS as IS. If you like Wil-liss, then it should be spelled Willis. As for REO, (Ransom Eli Olds great comeback) imagine if you decided A-U-D-I was correct way to pronounce AUDI. Too early Saturday morning for class, I'm off to do the NYT Sunday Crossword from last week. 

[John_S_in_Penna]

20 minutes ago, Gunsmoke said:

Ree-oh and Wil-leze. 

I can't definitively give Reo's pronunciation, but I know it

doesn't have to be capitalized any more than BUICK or

HUPMOBILE would be capitalized.  The fact that they

took the initials of the founder and made it a word--Reo--

implies that it is not pronounced merely as initials.

 

We've discussed Willys before, and we must not let any

inaccuracy stand.  Its pronunciation is not mere belief,

because we have the veracity of recorded sound.

It is "Willis," not "Willees."  You can hear the company

pronounce their own name as "Willis"--twice in just the

first 15 seconds of this advertisement:

 

 

Edited April 23, 2022 by John_S_in_Penna (see edit history)

[West Peterson]

^^^ What he said. WILLIS. !!!!

[Str8-8-Dave]

33 minutes ago, John_S_in_Penna said:

I can't definitively give Reo's pronunciation, but I know it

doesn't have to be capitalized any more than BUICK or

HUPMOBILE would be capitalized.

REO is an initials acronym, not a name.  Ransom Eli Olds.  That's why it is capitalized.  

[John_S_in_Penna]

Here is an ad for the 1931 Reo Royale.  Note that the

name is not all capitalized.  To me, that implies that

the word would not be pronounced as mere initials.

And the name, "Reo Royale," would not have the 

beautiful cadence that it does if it were pronounced

"R.E.O. Royale."

 

Inspired writing has cadence and concinnity.

 

Edited April 23, 2022 by John_S_in_Penna (see edit history)

[John_S_in_Penna]

1 minute ago, Str8-8-Dave said:

REO is an initials acronym, not a name.  Ransom Eli Olds.  That's why it is capitalized.  

It became more than an initialism, Dave.

Here's another ad in which Reo is used, not only as initials:

 

 

[Str8-8-Dave]

22 minutes ago, John_S_in_Penna said:

It became more than an initialism, Dave.

Ok- they have it both ways on one authentic old piece of paper so I agree with your point.  Never say an old dog can't learn new tricks though LOL...

 

 

A quick Google on Willys did confirm what I thought on that.  It is pronounced Willis by the man who owns the name.

 

J.N. Willys pronounced his name `Willis,' local Jeep historian says | The Blade (toledoblade.com)

 

This is an edit to my capitulation on capitalization.  Advertising agencies do a lot of funny things with their ads.  There is no doubt Reo- the word, was adopted by the ad agencies so it did sound better like Reo-Royale.   It also defers to the fact owners and fans commonly referred to cars badged with the initials REO as Reo.  That said, the man who owned the initials AND the company that owned the brand capitalized the initials because at the root of the name is the man, Ransom Eli Olds, who actually owned the initials borrowed by the company and had a significant reputation for his engineering prowess.  GM capitalized on his engineering prowess.  Looking carefully at the Reo Royale ad when it came time to do the legal stuff the advertiser used REO, not once in the ad but twice.  REO Motorcar Company is all caps, REO The Gold Standard of Value badge at the bottom of the ad, all caps.  When GM decided to go elsewhere with the branding on vehicles blurring the association with Ransom Eli Olds they went to the name Oldsmobile.   Buick isn't all caps because Buick is a name, not initials for a name, same with Cadillac and Chevrolet.

Edited April 23, 2022 by Str8-8-Dave (see edit history)

[CChinn]

How much of an influence does the late ‘60’s/early 70’s Rock band REO Speedwagon have on the spelling and pronunciation by our members who grew up in that era?  The band decided to spell and pronounce their name differently than the 1920s car company 

[Walt G]

9 minutes ago, Str8-8-Dave said:

Never say an old dog can't learn new tricks

Most of the people reading this are old dogs , me included. 😇

[bryankazmer]

38 minutes ago, Str8-8-Dave said:

REO is an initials acronym, not a name.  Ransom Eli Olds.  That's why it is capitalized.  

If you go with that logic, so are FIAT and ALFA

[alsancle]

It looks like you guys straightened this out.    The Willys one is mispronounced by 95% of the guys.    I will admit that Willeees rolls off the tongue easier.

 

Another one is Horch, which is pronounced as Horsh in the US,  but is Hork everywhere else.

[1912Staver]

BSA , motorcycles and cars, is usually pronounced  B  S  A , not Beeza. 

[dictator27]

How about ERF?

[1912Staver]

I have always thought of them as E -R- F , but I am not sure how the name is usually pronounced in the U.K. 

[Str8-8-Dave]

58 minutes ago, bryankazmer said:

If you go with that logic, so are FIAT and ALFA

It seems those badges are acronyms...

 

Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino- FIAT

 

Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili- ALFA

 

Why is Alfa Romeo Called Alfa Romeo? | Rewind & Capture (rewindandcapture.com)

 

Anything else?

 

I also queried Google for pictures of REO radiator badging and they are all caps....

Edited April 23, 2022 by Str8-8-Dave (see edit history)

[Str8-8-Dave]

The one acronym I really liked best was the one they put on the trunk of Cadillac cars for awhile, ETC was supposed to designate Eldorado Touring Coupe, I just called them Cadillac Etceteras....

 

 

[BobinVirginia]

I have a friend that loves 70’s and 80’ Jeeps.when he talks about wrenching on them I have to remind him what the Jeep name stood for then. 
 

JEEP=Just-Everybody -Else’s-Parts
 

It’s all friendly ribbing! 

[BobinVirginia]

Ferrari in my neck of the woods is pronounced. 
 

Fur-are-ree 

[1937hd45]

REO , as in Rio Grand, an often crossed river.

2 hours ago, bryankazmer said:

If you go with that logic, so are FIAT and ALFA

Add O.S.C.A to the list.

Edited April 23, 2022 by 1937hd45 (see edit history)

[SC38dls]

Does all this mean KIA really does mean killed in action? 
dave s 

[West Peterson]

2 hours ago, CChinn said:

How much of an influence does the late ‘60’s/early 70’s Rock band REO Speedwagon have on the spelling and pronunciation by our members who grew up in that era?  The band decided to spell and pronounce their name differently than the 1920s car company 

How is it spelled differently?

[CChinn]

All REO vs Reo. Although we may have evidence that the company used both versions

[TheMoneyPit]

I also want to know what this was about?? Did he change his middle name for export?

 

And I’ve heard and said both REO and R-E-O but question if the band had influence on it…

 

Photo credit is to Mike Shear’s website 

[West Peterson]

47 minutes ago, Str8-8-Dave said:

I also queried Google for pictures of REO radiator badging and they are all caps....

 

Well... so are a lot of names on car badges. Stutz, Rolls-Royce, Pierce, Alfa, Lamborghini, Porsche, .... well, you get my point.

[PFindlay]

38 minutes ago, TheMoneyPit said:

I also want to know what this was about?? Did he change his middle name for export?

 

And I’ve heard and said both REO and R-E-O but question if the band had influence on it…

 

Photo credit is to Mike Shear’s website 

I've  read somewhere that Reo is an impolite word in some South American countries, so they went with Rio instead, as in Rio de Janeiro.

 

As for capitalization,  at various times the company used both.  On the car and in company publications.

[George Smolinski]

Those of us who grew up in the 70’s & 80’s, and had a modicum of cool, listened to R-E-O Speedwagon, NOT.   Reo Speedwagon. That should settle it.

[Buick35]

What you talking about Willis?

[alsancle]

41 minutes ago, George Smolinski said:

Those of us who grew up in the 70’s & 80’s, and had a modicum of cool, listened to R-E-O Speedwagon, NOT.   Reo Speedwagon. That should settle it.

 

I can listen to them now because I'm nostalgic but at the time it was my HS girlfriends favorite band which I basically labeled music for chicks.  Same with Journey.

 

Led Zeppelin on the other hand...

[Gunsmoke]

For laughs, in Brazil (Portugese) it is pronounced Wheelies! That should make the JEEP fans smile. JMHO, but many families pronounced and spelled their surname differently than original. A quick look at historical English surnames found Willy and Willis, but no Willys. So at some point, the original surname was likely modified. Could have been as simple as adding an S to Willy indicating some thing like the Willy's family from Connecticut, or the Willys living in the next county. Or someone (census people) mis-spelled Willis by replacing an i with an y.  But I agree, if Mr. John Willys was proud to say Wil-lis, so be it.

 

Acronyms are everywhere, BMW (Bavarian Motor Works), RCA, IBM, etc, and usually are spelled as their letters because there is no obvious short cut. But when the acronym can have a more pleasant or practical pronunciation it becomes the common pronunciation very quickly, the most obvious one of late being NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization). 

Edited April 23, 2022 by Gunsmoke (see edit history)

[RansomEli]

Take it from the source:

• It's pronounced Ree-oh
• It's always spelled REO, except for Royales

 

As far as pronunciations are concerned, I've always liked:

• Jaguar: Jag-U-ar or Jag-war
• Porsche: Porsh or Porsh-uh

[Str8-8-Dave]

3 hours ago, 1912Staver said:

BSA , motorcycles and cars, is usually pronounced  B  S  A

stands for Birmingham Small Arms

BMW Bayerisch Motoren Werke  I had 4 BMW's, none had more than 2 cylinders or 2 wheels...  My 1977 R100S that I bought new from Oren Glassel at Howell Cycle was the best motorcycle I ever owned.  SN 616012, I bought another 1977 R100S from the then president of Bell Helmets on the left coast when I had a flashback to my youth. It was a disappointment because someone filled and ran the transmission on ATF and destroyed the smooth shifting I enjoyed with the first bike.  1000cc, 429lbs dry, 456lbs wet with 6 gals of gas, 45-50mpg, 127mph at 7200rpm.  

 

This is the bike I bought new parked at our cottages in Barton City, MI.  I got on that thing rain or shine in Dearborn, MI and rode 208 miles to the cottages where I was working weekends to make one of the cinder block bomb shelter cottages into a year-round retirement home for my mother.

Edited April 23, 2022 by Str8-8-Dave (see edit history)

[TerryB]

10 minutes ago, Str8-8-Dave said:

stands for Birmingham Small Arms

Is that why the seat is so close to the handlebars?  All those small arm riders?🤷‍♂️😀.

[TerryB]

From greenie’s Carlisle post, truck hood.

 

[JamesR]

5 hours ago, John_S_in_Penna said:

It is "Willis," not "Willees."  You can hear the company

pronounce their own name as "Willis"--twice in just the

first 15 seconds of this advertisement:

 

 

The above is correct, as many others have said. I think the problem is that many people haven't known someone old enough to have been alive and aware when the company was still in business. My dad was no car guy, but he remembered the commercials on radio and TV when he was younger. It would be interesting to know if drag racing guys of the late 1960's started the trend of saying "Willeeze"...or if their thousands of 12 year old fans who built all of those gasser model kits started it. I suspect the latter (being one of them myself.)

[John_S_in_Penna]

2 hours ago, RansomEli said:

Take it from the source:

It's pronounced Ree-oh

It's always spelled REO, except for Royales

That's a good idea, to take the name of the car

from the people who produced the car.  Consequently,

the name "Reo" was used not merely for Royales.

You may have seen the ad I posted above--and reposted

here.  And in the Royale ad, they describe it as being

"a car of Reo character."

 

Edited April 23, 2022 by John_S_in_Penna (see edit history)

[West Peterson]

2 hours ago, RansomEli said:

Take it from the source:

• It's pronounced Ree-oh
• It's always spelled REO, except for Royales

 

LOTS of Pre Royale company ads out there where Reo is not all caps.

[Guest]

6 hours ago, Str8-8-Dave said:

 It is pronounced Willis by the man who owns the name.

 

J.N. Willys pronounced his name `Willis,' local Jeep historian says | The Blade (toledoblade.com)

 

I thought long and hard before weighing in on this subject and, with much gnashing of teeth, I really tried to avoid it, but my OCD (and 7 cups of dark roast coffee) kept bringing me back and finally won out.  So please accept my pre-apology.  It's not too late to save yourself, you can (and should) stop reading this reply right now.

 

Due to an overbearing but endearing high school teacher, I chose English as my major in college.  Little did I know the depths of that rabbit hole...

Years later I find it to be both a blessing, when corresponding, and a curse, when my OCD induced, pedantic corrections instantly alienated me from friends, relatives and most new acquaintances.  

So without getting into a lengthy and very boring  lesson on prepositions, pronouns and past participles I can tell you that the pronunciation of Willys as "WILL-ISS" would undoubtedly be considered improper form in regular English usage.  When y or ey ends a word in an unaccented syllable, the y has the long sound of e.  Examples: money, honey, many, key, funny.

"Y" does use the sound of a short "i" but more often in the middle of a word rather than at the end.  Examples: lyric, gypsy, cygnet.

 

However the proper or improper use of English has positively no bearing when it comes to the pronunciation of one's own name.  I knew a council member years ago who's last name was HOGG.  Exactly like Boss Hogg from the Dukes of Hazzard.  And of course every indicator in the world would pronounce this word in the fashion related to a swine, especially with the double consonant at the end.  Mr. Hogg insisted his name be pronounced HOAG and that it always had been.  Who was I to argue?  His name could have been SMITH and if he chose to pronounce it SKINIZZIFIX that (unfortunately) would also have been acceptable as long as he spelled it SMITH on any binding documents.

 

So, if you've hung with me this far, the correct pronunciation of WILLYS is whichever way the owner of that name wants it to be.

Now as much as this knowledge will certainly keep me awake for the next several nights, tossing and turning, arguing with my pillow, pacing the floor, searching countless boxes in my attic for old dust covered grammar books to reassure myself, I must admit that, according to Mr. J.N. Willys, WILL-ISS is the correct answer in this case.

I'm switching to hard liquor now...

 

 

[wayne sheldon]

GregLaR,

I know the feeling!

 

History, in order to be truly understood, must be considered in the context of its time! (Should there or should there not be an apostrophe in "its"?) History needs to be taken with its (" ' " ?) historic influences and the causes that lead to it being what it was, and/or is.

 

Spoken language was invented, initially developed, roughly 30,000 years before written language. Spoken language has been said to be the single most important invention/development in human history! Written language may very well be the second most important development.

It is only in the most recent hundred years, that MOST people, even in the most developed regions of the world, could fully read and write. Even in the nineteenth century, a large percentage of people in most of the geographic North America could not read or write in any significant amount. Even most of Europe that same century had a huge amount of people that were functionally illiterate. Being a scribe, a person that read to, or wrote for illiterate people, was a full time and honored profession!

The practice of having a name, goes back thousands of years. Some people, often either royalty or important officials with fancy titles might have a string of several names. However, the practice of a surname did not  become common until almost a millennia ago (about 1000 years). It was in the middle ages by the time most of Europe required surnames. Through most of the 1800s, nearly half the population of the more developed regions of the world still could not read or write their own name! When people migrated to some other part of the world, whether a hundred miles or across an ocean, even if one could read and write, a scribe would take their information and write it into ledgers. Scribes may have been more educated than were most people. However, they also put their own prejudices and histories into their spellings. People would be asked their name, and answer in a thick unfamiliar accent, the scribe would put something down, and that however right or wrong might become their name!

My wife has been tracing her genealogy for several years now. Do you have any idea how many ways there are to spell Callighan? Most people in those days didn't know how to spell their own name. The scribe was on his own!

English is a tough language. It is unlike the basic French, Italian, and Spanish, all of which descended independently from Latin. It is worse than German which split away and mixed with the Northern Germanic languages, making it much more complicated than the three key "romance" languages. English has many elements of all of those mixed with Saxony and Gaelic languages not like anything the other European languages used! Ever wonder why a "double-u" is printed as two "V"s? There is a reason for that! Why the mixings of "F" and "V" and "W" sounds between English and German? Why all the "i" and "e" and how does one enunciate Frankenstein? And why? 

There are historic reasons for all of those things!

There are so many rules in the English language! And for every rule, many exceptions!

 

Fascinating stuff!

[Guest]

Well thought out post Wayne.

 

Whenever I run into someone from England I find glee in mentioning that, while they gave us our language ....we improved on it.   😄