How do you pronounce Lego

[n7of9]

East coast, never heard lay-go. I've heard lots of Aussies pronounce (Nestle) nessuls, or (Miele) mill-yai. There's also some who still say (Nike) noik.

Reminds me of the devastation I felt when I learned the correct pronunciation of Chuppa Chups is choopa choops.

 

[Lynda2475]

What do the Danes say?

Leg-Oh. And for proof one only needed to watch the last season of Lego Masters who had a Danish team.

 

[andye]

England Leg-oh
I loved it

 

[VPS]

Sadly it seems my friend was correct and it’s an SA thing to say laygo

 

[SYD]

Sadly it seems my friend was correct and it’s an SA thing to say laygo

It’s probably a Nigerian scam based in the capital…

 

[tdimdad]

Why y'all look like trying to stress the end of the word? 1) It's phonetic and 2) stress on the first syllable. <LEgo>
Google Translate gives you a pretty good example of the pronunciation if you want to listen to it.

 

[VPS]

Why y'all look like trying to stress the end of the word? 1) It's phonetic and 2) stress on the first syllable. <LEgo>
Google Translate gives you a pretty good example of the pronunciation if you want to listen to it.

That wasn't the question - it was how do you pronounce it and especially as a kid in the distant past

 

[SYD]

That wasn't the question - it was how do you pronounce it and especially as a kid in the distant past

And Google has an American English bias. So kick that into touch.

 

[DC3]

I have never heard it called "lay-go" either.

So, you have never spent much time in Adelaide, discussing this?

 

[DC3]

That wasn't the question - it was how do you pronounce it and especially as a kid in the distant past

Yes. Post # 1 is a good starting point.

 

[oz_mark]

Ever since I had heard of it, it was LEG O. (out west)

Mind you, when I was a young boy, we were so poor I had to make do with an alternate brand (called Bricko or something like that)

 

[SYD]

Mind you, when I was a young boy, we were so poor I had to make do with an alternate brand (called Bricko or something like that)

But unlike Lego, the stepping on barefoot risk was replaced with stubbing your toe…

 

[Randel]

Lay go baby! And yep - born and raised in ADL

 

[Pushka]

Sadly it seems my friend was correct and it’s an SA thing to say laygo

My Brit DIL went to the bother of googling it a few months ago as I gave our grandson our sons old Lego.

Our pronounciation rules here tell us if there's no gg then it's not pronounced Leggo.

This 'say it as the inventing countries say it' is rather moot when we are talking of different languages. So many of everyone's words are pronounced differently from its originating country. And then there's other language patterns. Thats why NZ pronounce words differently to South Africans, to so many different patterns of word speak in UK and the rest of the world . There's no point in arguing how STH Aussies are saying it is wrong simply because that's not how the Danes say it.

 

[Lynda2475]

There's no point in arguing how STH Aussies are saying it is wrong simply because that's not how the Danes say it

Disagree. It's a name and the person (a Dane) who gave the name sets the pronunciation.

If you met someone with the name Sean would you call them "seen" because you don't see it spelt "Shawn"? Of course not, once told the correct pronunciation you use it..

Noting even in English it's not said Leg + Go needing a double g but rather Leg + oh. How it got to Lay + Go is funny because even if you incorrectly move the stress it would be Lee + Go. Noting it is Legal (Lee-gal not lay-gal)

It is certainly a uniquely South Australian quirk, common usage there maybe, correct nope.
 

 

[andye]

How long ago did you check your rego?
There are no local rules it seems

I did meet someone at a party who worked for Australian Lego. He was originally from UK but did pronounce it leg-oh

Maybe the Italians in Adelaide took "prego" as a template

 

[MARTINE]

As long as you don’t start with “cookies” we promise not to flay you in the town square.

Where are you going on vacation - tax deductible convention perhaps. I had not heard ‘Lay-go’ until I looked at this thread. I think like most areas of life we want to fit in; hence, we adopt how our peers pronounce. Seems in SA its Lay-go. I have Danish family and go there a lot but I never say George Jensen as its spelled and we say here - as its phonetically ‘ Gay-yor Yensen’ . Its easier to fit in with locals. Whereas here in Australia if I pronounced it like that I would sound pretentious.

In fact Leg-godt is Danish for play well (and inspired the name Lego)
In Denmark is pronounced closer to the way SA pax say it!

 

[Forg]

How long ago did you check your rego?
There are no local rules it seems

The rules are "if you mispronounce it as lay-go then we will give you a pass if you have the excuse of having been raised in South Oz".

It's interesting watching local idioms, and reactions to them.
You can tell from this thread that, probably because it's not really a normal topic of physical discussion, there are a bunch of people from SA who're surprised anyone wouldn't pronounce it as "laygo", and the rest of us who've not discussed LEGO with South Australians haven't even heard of the "largo" pronunciation (and still won't rail against that as hard as we do against Americans and their "Legos").
I guess here we're used to accents not varying as much as elsewhere ... then when you go elsewhere the accents that can vary in such small distances are weird! It takes someone with a fairly well-attuned ear to hear the difference between an eastern Sydney accent and an Adelaide accent, though they do exist ... and yet in the lunch room in my Belgian HQ where everyone was speaking Flemish (and I don't) you could hear the English accent while speaking Flemish of the people who grew-up on the English Channel ... all of 60km away.

Some thing do spread due to Reasons. Take the word bogan ... that didn't exist in NSW or Queensland prior to the 80's, it was very much a Victorian and maybe even Melbourne thing. I'm pretty sure the word was spread due to the success of Melbourne-based comedy TV starting in the early 80's, think of a popular comedy TV show from the 80's (or even a popular Saturday-morning and then Saturday night variety/entertainment show which featured numerous comedians) and it generally came out of Melbourne.
Comedians are definitely where I first heard the word ... they were Westies in Sydney before the likes of Fast Forward, Comedy Company, D-Generation, etc.

George Jensen

What do the Danes say?

"Stop calling it lay-go!!!" (with perfect English grammar & diction)

 

[MARTINE]

The rules are "if you mispronounce it as lay-go then we will give you a pass if you have the excuse of having been raised in South Oz".

"Stop calling it lay-go!!!" (with perfect English grammar & diction)

I will forgive any ‘mispronunciation’ if we all know to what we are referring (lay-go / lego)
….But if you give me a ‘pacific example’ of what I have just written — that is next level grammaris horribilis

 

[Forg]

I will forgive any ‘mispronunciation’ if we all know to what we are referring (lay-go / lego)
….But if you give me a ‘pacific example’ of what I have just written — that is next level grammaris horribilis

Would the pacific example help us nip it in the butt?