How do you say Melee?

[Magicman10893]

"May Lay"

I'm not certain if that is correct, but that is the way I believe it is pronounced and when people pronounce it differently it makes me mad. On a similar topic, has anyone ever pronounced, "Turret" as "Turrent?" I have no idea where they get that pronunciation, but I hear it everywhere and every time they say it's the right way to pronounce it and some have said that their English teachers have even said that is the way to pronounce it, which is total bullshit. Then they try to say it's like "current," which I kindly remind them ACTUALLY HAS A FUCKING "N" IN IT!



Sorry for that rant.

 

[Sovreign]

maylay

 

[Yoshemo]

Super Smash Bros. tells me its May-lay so thats how I say it!

 

[iFail69]

Meh-lay

that's how I say it at least

 

[DanielBrown]

Me-lee.
I'm aware that it's not the correct pronouncement, but every other way sounds wrong to me. I blame that Super Smash Melee game, that threw the word in my face without pronouncing it!

 

[SageSays]

A dictionary on the interweb suggests that it is pronounced mey.ley

Which is the easiest way to type it in a post without using a whole lot of special characters.

I'm not much scratch on phonetics but I'm fairly certain that makes it sound very much like May Lay, although it is a french word and the french have a wicked sense of humor when it suits them. The dictionary also suggested that the word could be related to 'medley', possibly because they are both borrowed wholesale from french and are only different by a slight movement of the tongue. I'd argue a whole letter can represent a world of difference, but I said I wasn't much scratch with phonetics. Or Etymology neither.

You, OP, asked how I say it. That would be me.lay. Only because I'm childish and it makes me giggle. I play some pen and paper rpgs, and they give you a surprising surplus of opportunity to utter the word mêlée and, in the heat of the moment, I occasionally hear myself shortening it to meh.lay.

That's what SageSays

 

[Havzad]

i used to say ma-lay
then i said me-lee
now i say may-lay

 

[TheMadPunter]

I pronounce it "may-lay", just as Pat Cashman did before me (announcer in Smash Bros.; also the voice of Bill Nye's cameraman).

 

[Levethian]

Wrong pronunciation is wrong.

No mercy for accents at the Escapist.
I can't understand Glaswegians. I'm unlikely to say 'no no no, it's "I'm going to cut your face", not "I'm ginnae cut yer feeece".. wait what?'

Language is organic. If enough people say it wrong, wrong becomes accepted and then right.

I tend to defer to 'close combat'.

 

[Roxor]

"Mee-lee" is how I say it.

 

[rickicker]

Normally it's "May-Lay" for me, because it's closer to how our native tongue pronounce it.

 

[Wayneguard]

definitely may-lay

 

[duchaked]

I say... may-lay

tho I think less about smash bros than smacking someone in Halo haha

 

[nicebuffalo]

maylay. milay sounds strange with the accent at the last syllable.

 

[Frozen Donkey Wheel2]

Mee-lay. I'm probably mispronouncing it.

 

[foodmaniac]

I've always said Me-Lee

 

[MetallicaRulez0]

May-Lay is the proper pronunciation in the US. I've heard many Brits say Me-Lee however.

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

Both ways are correct. U.S. English say May-Lay. U.K. English say Me-Lee.

See: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/melee

Strange...I'm American and I've always pronounced it Me-Lay. Perhaps there's a bit of English in me after all, eh?

 

[AlmostLikeLife]

It's may-lay when it's coming out of my mouth. I hear it any other way and it takes me a while to realize what people are talking about.

 

[icyneesan]

I pronounce it DEATH COMBAT. Then a car behind me explodes. Besides Super Smash Bros. DEATH COMBAT *explosion* sounds way cooler then Super Smash Bros. Melee. SEARCH YOUR FEELINGS! YOU KNOW IT TO BE TRUE!