Pronouncing the word "Geep"

jbaakko

Active Member
The subject of pronouncing acronyms as words generally bugs me, too, as most names don't need to be so long that we have to substitute a bunch of letters. There are banks and telecommunication companies out there of which people probably don't even know the full name, and the mish-mash of letters itself is not pronounceable either. The Bank of Montreal has somehow become the BMO, pronounced Bee-Moe: I thought that they'd moved their head office to Missouri. :eek::rolleyes:
It baffles me that companies with rock-solid sounding names choose to become cutesy acronyms: The Steel Company of Canada became STELCO, Dominion Foundries and Steel Company became DOFASCO, and Northern Telephone and Telecommunications became NORTEL. :eek:
One that really bothers me is from the steel industry, where the basic oxygen furnace became a BOF, but almost not one steelworker could pronounce it Bee-Oh-Eff: instead we got Boff or Bawf wall1 . What a bunch "off" illiterates. :rolleyes::-D One that I do accept (but only 'cause they slipped it past me) is SCUBA. ;)Wayne
Band Of America has since become a snake too: "BOA", and Washington Mutual: "Wamu"...

How about this one "Bombardier ".
I saw a film about him on sate-lite TV, a very interesting biography, and perhaps the only time in the world the name was pronounced correctly, or you would think as his family helped write it.

Charlie
It's pronounced "Can-Am". :eek:

Its... Bom-bar-de-yay (close)...
 

jbaakko

Active Member
One last question is raised in my mind, how do you pronounce my name (Baakko)? Computer pronunciation software seems to get it right.
 

tetters

Rail Spiking Fool!
With regards to the OP (Original Post...heh).

Sounds to me like someone has too much time on his hands. When I first got back into the hobby, of all of the people I've met who seem to have more experience then I, call them "Jeeps". If its good enough for them...it's good enough for me.
 

doctorwayne

Active Member
One last question is raised in my mind, how do you pronounce my name (Baakko)? Computer pronunciation software seems to get it right.

Hmmm. I'm too lazy to bother hooking-up my speakers, so I'll have to take a guess. How's Baw-ko sound?
People seem to have trouble with my last name, too, which used to bug me when I was a kid. :curse: Nowadays, my brother and I often address one another in the most outlandish version that we can come up with, prefaced, of course, by Mister. ;):-D

Wayne
 

doctorwayne

Active Member
Since we're into questionable pronunciations, and it is a railroad forum, how about a railroady pronounciation mystery? The Detroit and Mackinac?

A french-speaker would pronounce the first "Dee-trwah" (rolling the 'r'), and how the heck do you get Mac-in-awe out of the latter? ;)

Per-aps dey din see ze "cee". Let's face it, our former Prime Minister Jean Chretien, always a card, baffled me with the word "devil-up", his anglo version of the English word "develop".
The cheque :rolleyes: is in the mail.:p;)

Wayne
 

rogerw

Active Member
Maybe with all the developing that goes on now a days for the almighty buck, he wasnt to far off.:yep:
 

jbaakko

Active Member
Hmmm. I'm too lazy to bother hooking-up my speakers, so I'll have to take a guess. How's Baw-ko sound?
People seem to have trouble with my last name, too, which used to bug me when I was a kid. :curse: Nowadays, my brother and I often address one another in the most outlandish version that we can come up with, prefaced, of course, by Mister. ;):-D

Wayne
You are correct my good sir. Baw, or Bah, considering they're pronounced the same basicaly.
 

Pitchwife

Dreamer
I find geep to be convenient, although it's only good as a generic term when the conversation is about a particular model. If you refer to the geeps of a particular road, you should specify the model, though, as there were quite a few, starting with the GP7 and ending with the GP60, with more than a few numbers skipped. Of course, it also helps to distinguish that the letters Gee Pee represent a locomotive rather than a doctor, too. :rolleyes:;):-D:-D
The subject of pronouncing acronyms as words generally bugs me, too, as most names don't need to be so long that we have to substitute a bunch of letters. There are banks and telecommunication companies out there of which people probably don't even know the full name, and the mish-mash of letters itself is not pronounceable either. The Bank of Montreal has somehow become the BMO, pronounced Bee-Moe: I thought that they'd moved their head office to Missouri. :eek::rolleyes:
It baffles me that companies with rock-solid sounding names choose to become cutesy acronyms: The Steel Company of Canada became STELCO, Dominion Foundries and Steel Company became DOFASCO, and Northern Telephone and Telecommunications became NORTEL. :eek:
One that really bothers me is from the steel industry, where the basic oxygen furnace became a BOF, but almost not one steelworker could pronounce it Bee-Oh-Eff: instead we got Boff or Bawf wall1 . What a bunch "off" illiterates. :rolleyes::-D One that I do accept (but only 'cause they slipped it past me) is SCUBA. ;)

Okay, enough of my rant, thanks for listening. :wave::-D Carry on swimming naked. :killer: ;)

Wayne
Some companies use their initials to shorten their names, making it easier to pronounce. One notable blunder was Trans World Airlines. There are fewer syllables in their name than in their initials. :p :p :p :mrgreen:
 

tetters

Rail Spiking Fool!
People seem to have trouble with my last name, too, which used to bug me when I was a kid. :curse: Nowadays, my brother and I often address one another in the most outlandish version that we can come up with, prefaced, of course, by Mister. ;):-D

Wayne


I earned the nickname "Ziplock" during my brief military career with a reserve unit. During a platoon inspection by the Capt, he briefly called me Ziplock instead of my real last name. It was all downhill after that. Shortly there after when ever some one asked me how Ziplock was doing, I'd answer "Keeping It Fresh, ...Sgt, Corp, Sir..." You get the idea.

Could have been worse considering the other versions I've heard my last name twisted into.
 

doctorwayne

Active Member
Most names are easy fodder for changing into nicknames. In the last department in which I worked, everybody, and I mean everybody, had a nickname, many not repeatable on a family-friendly Forum such as this. It took me a couple of months to figure out which nickname corresponded to which real name on the seniority list, as most had absolutely nothing to do with the person's real name. :rolleyes:

Wayne
 

MCL_RDG

Member
Okay- just to set the record straight...

...it is pronounced Jeep. Now since that is settled...

It's MCL - just like ya see it, M - C - L. Manayunk Canal Line.

Next!

Mark

JEEP GP Gee P
 
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