A pronunciation question

[Calthrop]

Something very trivial; but... the word "lambaste" -- meaning, to attack someone with angry intensity (usually nowadays, only in a "fighting with words" sense). From earliest times, I had always understood it as being pronounced to rhyme with "ham taste". Nowadays, it seems to be standard-ly pronounced to rhyme with "ham fast" (the "fast" with the northern-type pronunciation -- short "a" -- not the southern-type "fahst"). My brother -- an intelligent and well-educated guy -- uses the "ham fast" pronunciation. I've even seen in a book purporting to be a guide to good English, an assertion that the "ham fast" pronunciation is the correct one.

I find the "ham fast" version, very hard to come to terms with. It would seem to me self-evident that "lambaste" -- with its fierce-aggression connotations -- is a combination of "lamming into" something -- fierce physical attack -- and "basting" it: cooking it, including pouring hot fat over = basting. The "ham fast" type pronunciation just strikes me as senseless / losing the meaning / wrong. And while English spelling vis-a-vis pronunciation doesn't mean a lot: if the correct pronunciation has always been the "ham fast" type -- why is the word not spelt "lambast"?

Would be interested in anyone's thoughts on this matter...

 

[jfollows]

Well, I would spell the word without the final "e" and indeed: (https://grammarist.com/spelling/lambast-lambaste/)

SPELLING
Lambast vs. lambaste

For the verb meaning (1) to beat or (2) to scold or berate, lambaste is the preferred spelling in American and Canadian English, while lambast is preferred in varieties of English from outside North America.



While the exact derivation of the word is not definitively known, the OED posits that it’s a combination of lam and baste, both of which bear the sense (now archaic for both words) to beat soundly. Other sources agree. And lambaste is the older form. In historical Google Books searches, lambast is almost nonexistent before 1850. It appears increasingly in the second half of that century, including in works by Charles Dickens and Rudyard Kipling (British authors).

From the spelling without the "e", the pronunciation might be clearer.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Lam-bast for me (as in ham-fast).

Anything else sounds as if Hyacinth Bucket is mangling the word's pronunciation (!)

 

[Calthrop]

Thank you both, for opinions. I learned the word from my parents: both English, but their pronunciation was the "ham-taste" kind -- for better or worse, that feels right "to me and for me": I feel (@Mcr Warrior -- nothing personal !) the "ham-fast" rendering to sound, frankly, a bit mad -- for myself, will renounce ever using the word in future, rather than adapt.

"Lambaste" as the North American spelling (I personally, reckon to have seldom seen it spelt "lambast" over here; maybe that's confirmation bias) -- my father was in the Merchant Navy before and during World War II, and had various stop-overs in North America -- he and my mother were quite Americophilic -- maybe he learned the word over there, and taught it to Mum (do Americans and Canadians say it "ham-taste"-wise? -- there's a US-based message board on which I can enquire about that).

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Might have to set up a poll on this.

 

[MotCO]

I rhyme with fast. Maybe it is a north v south issue?

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Onslow vs Hyacinth Bucket ?

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Lam-bast for me (as in ham-fast).

Anything else sounds as if Hyacinth Bucket is mangling the word's pronunciation (!)

Yep same here and I live in the USA!

 

[Calthrop]

Essentially everything so far, contrary to my "ham-taste". I've consulted the Yanks / Canucks, as mentioned above. Data eagerly awaited...

 

[Calthrop]

From responses to my post on the North American board, as mentioned upthread: spelling (with final e, or without) seems fairly equally-split, randomly, both "there and here" -- as things often are with the English language: not a high degree of connection / consistency between spelling and pronunciation !

On the matter of pronunciation: a Canadian board participant avers that the "ham taste" rendering is usual in Canada. The majority of US posters reported that they pronounce the word to rhyme with "ham fast"; one US vote for "ham taste". (It would seem that published works as opposed to people in "real life", opine that North American pronunciation tends toward "ham taste", British toward "ham fast".) Three British participants on the board, were unanimous on "ham fast".

So it does seem that in Britain, I am, and my parents (now deceased) were, decidedly odd in using the "ham taste" pronunciation. (It tends not to be a word that one uses every day -- but I'm sure I've heard the "ham taste" pronunciation from other Britons, than only me and Mum and Dad.) Just "what one is used to", no doubt; but as per my OP -- I strongly feel that the "ham taste" way, is right -- it sounds splendidly fierce and aggressive; the "ham fast" version just feels to me, wet and feeble and silly (Hyacinth Bucket or not ). At all events: enough support for my way, got -- as told of above -- from the other side of the Atlantic, for me to feel I can go on using the word, pronounced my way. The Canada element is heartening: I have the second-biggest country on earth, solidly behind me...

 

[hexagon789]

My pronouncing dictionary lists "lamb-bast" (rhyming with fast) as the only UK English option but gives both "lamb-bast" and "lamb-baste" for US English.

 

[soccermad]

fast for me as well

 

[prod_pep]

Also 'fast' and always spelt without the 'e'. Rhyming it with 'taste' sounds like an American affectation to my ears.

 

[Calthrop]

Also 'fast' and always spelt without the 'e'. Rhyming it with 'taste' sounds like an American affectation to my ears.

Thank you all, once again, for all thoughts on this matter. Lately, on the other board which I've mentioned, info has come in to the effect that the "ham taste" pronunciation is strongly favoured in Australia. It would seem that all respondents on this thread -- all, basically, British? -- continue solidly behind "ham fast". I'm sorry, but that pronunciation just continues to sound and feel strange and wrong to me; not ("turn about") an affectation -- just, as I've said, gutless and feeble (my personal reaction; I respect others' preferring it pronounced their way; but I absolutely will not be joining them).

I continue to wonder (granted, there are more urgent things in the world to worry about) "how come" my parents seem to have been so thoroughly out of step with their compatriots, where this word was concerned. My father was English, of English parents; but during his boyhood, the family lived in Wales -- in Flintshire, just a few miles on the Welsh side. Am musing upon -- could it be that Welsh people, speaking English, give this word the "ham taste" pronunciation; and that my father and his family "caught" the pronunciation from their Welsh neighbours? -- perhaps this, rather than his picking it up when voyaging in foreign parts? All relatives of my parents' generation, both father's and mother's sides, are now dead, and can't be approached for their thoughts on this issue.