Eat Your Words

A recent article in The New York Times, You Say Prosciutto, I Say Pro-SHOOT, and Purists Cringe described the final vowel-eating habits of Italian Americans and others when pronouncing Italian food words. To wit: "...prosciutto (pro-SHOOT-toe) becomes pro-SHOOT, calzone (cal-TSO-nay) becomes cal-ZONE and pasta e fagioli (PAH-stah eh faj-YOH-lee) becomes pasta fasul (fa-ZOOL)."

Some readers took issue with the article's argument, claiming it "makes no real effort to distinguish informal speech vs. Italian dialect variation vs. Americanisms". The standard Italian vs. dialect discussion never fails to ring a chorus of voices.