So when did "Nessels Milky Bar" become "Ness-LAY Milky Bar"?

[Cartimand]

I'm old enough to remember the early Milky Bar Kid adverts which finished with "Nestlé's Milky Bar" pronounced "Nessels Milky Bar".

Now I realise that Nestlé is a Swiss company and that it should be pronounced 'a la franҫaise', but just like Peugeot ("Purr-zhoh") is pronounced "pew-zhoh" on British TV or the German Beer Löwenbräu ("lurvenbroy") is pronounced well like it's spelt in English, we used to Anglicise Nestlé's into "nessels".

Can anyone tell me when it was first pronounced "Ness-lay" on British TV please?

[Austin Maxi]

Re: So when did "Nessels Milky Bar" become "Ness-LAY Milky Bar"?

I don't know exactly when, but I know what you mean, and I still refer to it as Nestles (Nessels) and not Ness-lay. If it was good enough in the '80s.....

Talking of which, why is Michelin pronounced Mitch-elin when it's about tyres, and Meesh-elan when it's about restaurant grades?

[agfagaevart]

Re: So when did "Nessels Milky Bar" become "Ness-LAY Milky Bar"?

Can anyone tell me when it was first pronounced "Ness-lay" on British TV please?

It was circa mid '90s, after they got taken over.

[Richard1978]

Re: So when did "Nessels Milky Bar" become "Ness-LAY Milky Bar"?

Lancia is mostly pronounced "Lanseea" in the UK, though the correct way in Italian is "Lanchear"

Volkswagen should be Folks Vagen as well.

[wispa lover]

Re: So when did "Nessels Milky Bar" become "Ness-LAY Milky Bar"?

My wild guess is 1992, when Nestle took over Rowntree Mackintosh.
On a related note in MTV's early days there was this programme called 'Braun's European Top 20',
they pronounced Braun as 'brown'.

[Cartimand]

Re: So when did "Nessels Milky Bar" become "Ness-LAY Milky Bar"?

Cheers guys! For a while, having seen the retro style Milky Bar adverts where they dubbed "Nest-lay" over the original "Nessels" , I almost thought I'd dreamt it!

It will always be "nessels" to me!

Braun not being pronounced "Brown" does actually quite annoy me though, as does Renault (Ruh-no) being pronounced "Rennow"!

[Marillion]

Re: So when did "Nessels Milky Bar" become "Ness-LAY Milky Bar"?

This is part of the trend towards pronouncing all names the way the natives pronouce it. Beijing, you may remember, used to be called Peking in this country, and Mumbai was Bombay.

I think this is silly. What does it matter how they pronouce it? We aren't expected to pronouce Paris 'Paree'. Fortunately Burma we can still call Burma, because no one in this part of the world knows how to pronouce Myanmar.

[sarcymarky]

Re: So when did "Nessels Milky Bar" become "Ness-LAY Milky Bar"?

Ahh, this Pronunciation and rebranding is a regular topic of discussion in our household. Like Oil of Ulay becoming Olay, Jif to Cif and the whole snickers/marathon and opal fruits/starburst affair. I still call things by their original names much to the confusion of my teenage daughters.

[Trickyvee]

Re: So when did "Nessels Milky Bar" become "Ness-LAY Milky Bar"?

And John Lewis in Newcastle used to be called Bainbridges, even though it was owned by John Lewis and had the same decor and logos. They changed it to JL about 5 or 6 years ago. Did any other John Lewis shops go by another name anywhere else?

[zip55]

Re: So when did "Nessels Milky Bar" become "Ness-LAY Milky Bar"?

It was first pronounced correctly when the 'accent acute' was discovered.

[Star Attraction]

Re: So when did "Nessels Milky Bar" become "Ness-LAY Milky Bar"?

And John Lewis in Newcastle used to be called Bainbridges, even though it was owned by John Lewis and had the same decor and logos. They changed it to JL about 5 or 6 years ago. Did any other John Lewis shops go by another name anywhere else?

John Lewis in Southampton used to be called Tyrrell & Green when it was at its original premises. When it relocated to the West Quay Shopping Centre around 2002, it was branded John Lewis.

[tonyfinster]

Re: So when did "Nessels Milky Bar" become "Ness-LAY Milky Bar"?

The change started with the insidious influence of political correctness and the birth of the "new man" at the end of the eighties and start of the 90's
Up to that point, we were only members of the european community because we felt obliged. We still had the hangover of our empire days and we assumed that our language was superior to that of johnny foreigner therfore we anglicised foreign names and words. Nowadays its fashionable to correctly pronounce words because of political correctness as hevean forbid we offend someone by butchering there language. Funny thing is that other europeans dont see the need to correctly enunciate english words in there lingual usage so to me it seems both pretentious and patronising to do so, but as we realised that europe was here to stay
we had to concede some attitudes.
Place names in India changed due to the country asserting its soveriegnty and dropping the anglicised names given before independence from the commonwealth.
I hung around for a month in a place called Trivandrum which was in the process of being called its original name before we shortened it, so it became
Thiruvananthapuram. quite a mouthful and its no wonder we shortened it.

As for product names changing, a lot of that is to due with the phonetic differences between english and other european/world language. Problems occured in advertising and promotion due these differences.
JIF became CIF because spanish/latin root languages spoken around the world have the letter J as a silent letter whereas the majority have the letter C being pronounced in the alphabetical way.I think it was a similar reason for oil of Olay as well although i could be wrong.

(Still doesnt explain starburst, opal fruits they were and opal fruits they still are as far as i'm concerned)

[lynnski]

Re: So when did "Nessels Milky Bar" become "Ness-LAY Milky Bar"?

Knorr was another I think. Used to K-nor, but then again I could be wrong.

Lynn

[darren]

Re: So when did "Nessels Milky Bar" become "Ness-LAY Milky Bar"?

Ahh, this Pronunciation and rebranding is a regular topic of discussion in our household. Like Oil of Ulay becoming Olay, Jif to Cif and the whole snickers/marathon and opal fruits/starburst affair. I still call things by their original names much to the confusion of my teenage daughters.

i can imagine what they say to you mate.
original names are far better.
why did they change them in the first place.

i still go into the shops and ask for opal fruits etc.

[Jacqueline]

Re: So when did "Nessels Milky Bar" become "Ness-LAY Milky Bar"?

It was first pronounced correctly when the 'accent acute' was discovered.

I still haven't found that on my keyboard...

I don't like white chocolate anyway.