I got this off the loadammo.com website:

"The sabot has been around a very long time. In fact, the word sabot, pronounced say-bo, was introduced into the English language around 1607 and literally means "wooden shoe." A sabot is a sleeve (shoe) that partially envelops a projectile or bullet and positions the bullet in the barrel to prevent the escape of gases, around the bullet, when the cartridge is fired."

Everyone, and I mean everyone I've ever talked to, listened to, or everheard says 'sabbit', like 'rabbit'. My dictionary says it has French origin. Could this mis-pronunciation be part of the anti-French movement?

What is the common everyday usage? I don't intend to be part of the language geek police, but I'd rather not sound like a redneck if I can help it.

Another 'S' word I've heard pronounced differently is Shilen. I'm sure there are many others.

I say sabbit as does everyone I know. I guess it's just another reason for the french to not repay the money and munitions we loaned them in WW2.

"Sabot" is French. It indeed means "wooden shoe". It refers to the wooden shoes (like those you see in Holland) which were worn by French peasants/farmers. The term sabotage, also French, means "to throw a wooden shoe into the machine", thus stopping or breaking it!!



In France, "sabot" is indeed pronounced "SAY-BOH", the "t" at the end being silent, and the "O" being a long O, as if there were an "E" after it. Here in the U.S., a lot of people pronounce it "sabbutt", which is not correct, but who cares?? Here in the US, a lot of us mispronounce a lot of things!! I don't think the mispronunciation of this word is part of our recent anti-French reaction to their cowardly stupididy re: Iraq, but to our overall ignorance of much of anything that happens anywhere else in the world.

In my neck of the woods it is SAY-BOW.

We're getting closer. Actual French pronunciation is "sah-bo."

I first heard the term years ago as "say-bo" in reference to the tank rounds.

RSY

I am a redneck, and I pronounce it "sa'-bo," as in "sa'-bo-tage."
However, when my redneck friends look puzzled by this, I have to repeat:

"Sa-bo, sah-bo, say-bo, sabbutt.
Tomato, to-mah-to.
Impala, im-pah-la."

It's all the same to me, and I don't bat an eyelash over it.

Wees cal dem : Sour-boat

My father, an old military gun designer, pronounces it SAY BOW.

He has made lots of trips to Rock Island Arsenal, Detroit, and DC to sell his wares and probably picked up the vernacular there.

I just read gun stuff, and I always pronounced it SAH BUTT.


I know a girl who learned to read when she was very young and pronounced Chicago, CHICK AH GOE.

aint no "say bo"...
damn sure aint "sayy, baat"

think of it as coon-ass

saey... beau.. like you are asking your cousin a question, but don't feel like approaching it head on

jeffe

aint no "say bo"...
damn sure aint "sayy, baat"

think of it as coon-ass

saey... beau.. like you are asking your cousin a question, but don't feel like approaching it head on

I hear people SAY sabit... like a yanking saying sabbath... and wanna die laughing....

like hearing someone call the le'mat pistol a "lee matt" rather than "lah may"...

or,more close to home, callin a minnie ball a "mini-ball"... it's MIN'nay ... it's a french fellers name...

once had a guy, in a tech interview, answer
"shore, ah knows, tee-cee PIP"
"you mean t-c-p-i-p"
"yeah, you might call it that, but ah calls it teeceepip"

or the guy, trying to show off
"can you tell me about the spanning tree protocol?"
"nah, i didn't learn that old stuff, but i can tell you about spanning forrest (of course *I* am thinking runn forrest, run)"

"spanning forrest, what does that do, please tell me about it"

"that's where the lumber companies use routers and "lines" to connect their remote operations offices"

mind you, we are talking about a layter 2 network protocol, that determines if there is any POSSIBLE physical loop in connection throughout the network, and the entire layer 2 domain must agree on the view of the physical topology.

opps, damn, yeah, i am a tech

jeffe

jeffe

Don't make no difference how you say it! If you just say "them plastic things that them bullets is in" everybody will know what you mean! GHD

As long as I can figure out what is being discussed, I really don't care how it gets pronounced. Sabot is only one of the terms/names we butcher on a regular basis. There's also Leupold, Sako, Lapua, etc. This goes back a while, but can you remember hearing Desi Arnez sing the song, "Grenada"? The American television medium changed the pronunciation to the "long a" sound after the U.S. sent in troops to rescue medical students. As they say, ignorance is bliss.

As George Carlin once said, "You can spell your name 'Smith' and pronounce it 'Janopski' if you want." As long as it still says 'Smith' on your name tag, we know who you are anyway, so who cares.

Well, however the French pronounce their own word, RSY is right about the armor world, we pronounce it SAY-BO in the fire command. I just know that somebody got the bright idea a few years ago to organize a detail after every tank gunnery to walk downrange to pick up all of the damned things that fell off of our 120mm varmint rounds as they exited the tube. Seems like when you turn in that much aluminum you get a few bucks back for Uncle Sam.

"I just know that somebody got the bright idea a few years ago to organize a detail after every tank gunnery to walk downrange to pick up all of the damned things that fell off of our 120mm varmint rounds"----That cracked me up!
Well, I try to be as accurate/correct as I can, without gettin downright picky. I say it say-bo , and even prounounce La-May, as best I can. Funny, but I learned it as minny-ball, and still say it that way, even though I know it's wrong, now. I say porsha, and sometimes get some wierd looks when I say fraunky (Franchi), but most-times I do manage to be understood. BTW, It's pronounced "shillin" ............Bug

Well, you can take this as you want, but in the U.S., we are schizophrenic about transliterating foreign words. Because of the history of William the Bastard in England, the British waste no time in Anglicizing the imported French words; hence they would say Valet (Val-et). In the U.S., we have no such history with the French and really cannot make up our minds about which form of the word to use. We can properly use Val-et or Valay and nobody really cares. There are other examples. I prefer Say-boh(as here), most of my friends use Sabbut and nobody worries about it.

If you care about these things, buy and support the D.A.R.E. project in Madison, WI. The Dictionary of American Regional English has 4 volumes now completed and will be an singularly excellent work when done. Good Luck. Geo.

I do believe that Minie is pronounced min-yay, as in minuet, other that all, I say say bow. But then again, I ain't French.

To tell you the truth I wouldn't give a rats ass to find out how them loser monkey frenchies pronounce anything. I'll even go out of my way to mispronounce it just out of spite! Here in the U.S.A. people living next door to each other may have different ways of pronouncing the same word. My gun nut freinds and I all say sabot as it's spelled. You people can say it anyway you want and I won't care a bit.

Oh, no, this reminds me of a recent story on NPR about the pronounciation of the word "buoy". Many callers insisted that proper way to say it was "boy", much the same as we pronounce "buoyant" as "boyant". Hmmmm....

> do believe that Minie is pronounced min-yay<
Yes, the same as milieu (mill-you). Geo.

Lapua is correct;ly pronounced La pwaw, not La pu a.

The word that always gets me going is "Leupold." Seems that most people insist on saying "LEO-POLD" which was the name of the King of Denmark in the 19th century and was actually spelled "LEOPOLD." The correct pronunciation for the riflescope is "LOU-POLD." Not 100% certain, but I'm pretty sure I saw the correct pronunciation spelled out on Leupold's website or a catalog at one point.

I've suggested the correct pronuciation to a few I've spoken with but they don't seem to get it. I gave up after that.

The English language is probably the most abused and corrupted in the world.

well if they would all start speaking english we would understand them better

i thought it was pronouced sah-bot till I say a bit about it on mail call on the history channel. I even have a computer game that pronouces it sah-bot for the tank commands.

guess the game developers didnt research as well as they thought.

>Seems that most people insist on saying "LEO-POLD" which was the name of the King of Denmark in the 19th century and was actually spelled "LEOPOLD." The correct pronunciation for the riflescope is "LOU-POLD." Not 100% certain, but I'm pretty sure I saw the correct pronunciation spelled out on Leupold's website or a catalog at one point. <

Actually, the "eu" diphthong in German is pronounced in German as "oy"; in America we typically pronounce it as "I". Hence Budweiser's Annheuser-Busch as Anhizer-Busch here, instead of Annhoyzer-Busch. Other examples are Preuss(proyse)=Price and Scheue(Shoya)=Shy. In addition, Germans use a dt for d. So try something like Loypoldt in German, but in English most commonly Loopold. For some reason this one did not make the eu into an i here. In our country, it is common to pronounce names as the persons so named prefer (hence Leupold, as above), even with place names like Miami (Miamah), Oklahoma, or Prague(Prayg), Oklahoma. Fun stuff like this comes along now and then. Geo

At this point, do we dare wade into the pronounciation of........Meplat?

Geo.

Good point about the "true" pronunciation of Leupold.

Something new to learn everyday.

Well, to everybody visiting here: Merry Christmas. Corresponding with you has been a pleasure. Geo.