Poll: How do YOU say "Melee"?

[Whoatemysupper]

It comes from the French word mêlée, which means mix and is pronounced may-lay.

 

[LiliumSnow]

I usually pronounce it as "May-Lee", though sometimes I pronounce it as "May-Leh" as well. I guess how I pronounce it depends on how the person next to me pronounces it. If they pronounced it as "Mee-Lee" I'd probably start pronouncing it that way as well.

 

[Creator002]

I say "meh-lee"[footnote]Australian accent, you see. [/footnote], but I've heard people say "may-lay" before.

 

[holy_secret]

Oh you english speaking people so funny :3
If only your written and spoken languages actually made sense. How easy it would be for you.

I say maylay.

 

[Custard_Angel]

"Meh-lay"

Because its the "correct" way to pronounce it...

Assigning a long E sound to both "e" and "ee"? Madness

Wait... why would I pronounce "lay" as a long E. Based on how it's spelled, it should be a long A. According to Google Translator's text to speech, it should be the long E, but still.

Well melee is a French word and the actual spelling has one of those tick things above the e, which is where the "ay" sound comes from.

That's fine, but my main question here is why would I pronounce "ay" as a long E as you implied? According to Google Translator though, Meh-lee is the correct version (based on how I would pronounce Meh-lee).

...

I just told you.

The true spelling of melee is mêlée.

See those tick things? They denote different sounds. the first is an 'eh' sound, the second is an "ay" sound.

End of.

 

[stutheninja]

this is like the ramen noodles debate with my friends, it's simply a battle that cant be won

 

[mrmostlymittens]

I say it like:

Me (as in, myself) and Lee (as in, Rock Lee)...because I like ruin things lol

 

[Turing]

Even though I know its pronounced something like may-lay, I can't really shake using mee-lee instead as thats the pronounciation I grew up with (damn you Sid Meier's Pirates, damn you!)

 

[Canned Spam]

I say it may-lay, since that is the only correct way to pronounce it. Although I used to pronounce it mee-lee.

 

[Arbi Trax]

This is why I love the English Language. Only the English would take a French word, remove any indicators of how you're supposed to pronounce it, declare it an English word, and allow people to argue endlessly on the correct form until the end of time.

For my tuppence-worth, it's meh-lay.

 

[sanomaton]

I say it like it's written as in "Melee" (IPA: mɛlɛ&#720. I guess it's because I'm Finnish and we read our words exactly as they're written... Dunno why people should be arguing about this cos English speakers say lots of things different from each other. "Details" is one interesting word for that.

 

[Polarity27]

I know it's "may-lay", I took four years of French, but years of my husband and guildmates saying "mee-lee" have stuck in my head enough for me to constantly mispronounce it.

 

[PAGEToap44]

I am fully aware that it's pronounced 'May-Lay' or 'Meh-Lay', but I read it before I heard it, and I'd been saying 'Mee-Lee' for years before someone corrected me.

So it is irreconcilably 'Mee-Lee' for me, and I usually say it that way out of habit.

This, word for word. As far as I'm aware "May-Lay" is the American English pronunciation and "Meh-Lay" is the English pronunciation which follows the original French pronunciation more closely.

 

[Use_Imagination_here]

Mee lee. That's the way I learned to say it in britain when I was a kid, and that's the way I will continue saying it regardless of whether or not my friends will shut the fuck up about it. Any other way sounds as stupid to me as mine sounds to them.

And fyi, thank god my native language isn't the shitstorm english is. It's still bloody hard to learn though.

 

[The_Echo]

It seems the correct way to say it in American English is "may-lay." I've only ever heard Brits use "meh-lay," so I'll assume that's the correct way to say it in British English.

Personally, I use the former. Any of the pronunciations besides those two just sound kind of silly to me.

 

[Bobbity]

Maylay. Imagine that we're speaking french, and that it's spelled like this: mêlée. The accents change the way in which it's pronounced, so that we say maylay, as opposed to mehlee.

 

[James Joseph Emerald]

im the only one who says mee-lee?

if it sounds like may lay, I TOWULD BE SPEALT MAY LAY! BUT ITS NOT ITS SPEALT ME! AND ITS SPEALT LEE! MELEE! YOU PEOPLE CANT SPEAK MY LANGUAGE SO IM LEAVING!

The actual word has accents. So...

Nobody every uses the accents though, so I think if you're not going to bother with them, it should be pronounced the way it's spelled.

 

[Titan Buttons]

Most of the time I say Meh-Lay but sometimes I say Meh-Lee, don't know why I just do.

 

[EeveeElectro]

I say Mee-lee, I have a habit of pronouncing the things they way they're spelled. My boyfriend says may-lay and corrects me all the time though ;_;

 

[Knusper]

'May-Lay' because that's how they pronounce Melee Island in Monkey Island.