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american english - Pronunciation of "Porsche" over time


Is there an official pronunciation for Porsche? I grew up pronouncing it with a silent final e ("Porsh"). However, I've increasingly heard it was pronunced with a neutral e sound at the end ("Por-shuh").


Is this simply an anomaly in some people's idiolects, is it regional, or is it becoming a general thing in American English? And has the pronunciation with the final e become more common over time?



Answer



Car guys and gearheads have (pretty much) always known how to pronounce Por-sche.


Porsche's television ads have always given the proper pronunciation, so anyone who paid attention to them (which may have been limited to car guys and gearheads) knew the proper pronunciation.


I would speculate that Porsche has reached a broader market in the past decade or two, especially with the introduction of the Cayenne crossover in 2003, and so there have been more Porsche ads on television, giving a larger cross-section of people (not just the ones who watched F1 or GTP) exposure to the proper pronunciation.


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