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Bernie Sanders keeps saying Ol-ah-gawky but I thought it was o-le-garky?

Have I been mis-prouncing it this whole time? English is not my first language I am French. I am talking about Oligarchy

18 comments
  • Bernie has a very strong Brooklyn accent which is why the R turns to aw, but either pronunciation is totally fine.

  • The further NE you go in the US the more non-rhotic the dialect becomes, more or less.

  • You are correct. It is le garky not la garky. But Bernie does not follow the norms of gendered language.

  • You should hear how us mountain folk pronounce it.

    Awl-uh-garky, or all-uh-gurky are the two most common at my shooting club (and yes, left wing shooting clubs exist in the south, even here in the sticks).

  • The second vowel is an unstressed "i". In most varieties of English, since it is unstressed, we pronounce it as a schwa, which sounds roughly like "uh".

    If you'd like to articulate that syllable, like you might do in French, then pronounce it like the "i" in "sit". That's completely optional.

18 comments