Foyer / Foy-yay / Foy-er / Foy-ah / For-aye

[katycoo]

Bumping this thread, in respect of a regional-pronunciation matter which I encountered lately -- from a song heard on a You Tube item, performed by a Canadian singer.

The word concerned, is "leisure".  Will set out the word's second consonant, as "zh" -- like the J in the French name Jacques. There seem to be (at least) two possible pronunciations for this word. "Lezher" -- to rhyme (vowels-wise) with "fed her"; and "Leezher" -- to rhyme with "feed her".

In my country, the UK, I have only ever heard "lezher".  I've heard from Canadians (including, but not only, in the the You Tube instance mentioned above), "leezher".  And I had a friend who was from New Zealand, who pronounced it "leezher". The "leezher" pronunciation sounds strange, at least to this Brit; but, of course, a case of "whatever is standard practice / accustomed, for you".

Would be interested to know how this word is pronounced in the USA -- maybe it varies according to what part of the States?  And, should any Aussie participants be around; what's the pronunciation in Australia?

Lezher

[kareng57]

It's kind of funny because we use a lot of British spellings in Canada so I'm surprised we don't pronounce things in the British way.  (Neighbour, colour, sulphur, etc.)

As usual (metric/imperial is another example) we just can't make up our minds here.........

[cabbageweevil]

And, should any Aussie participants be around; what's the pronunciation in Australia?

Lezher

So, it's beginning to look like: Britain and Australia, short "e"; English-speakers elsewhere, long "e" (unless my New Zealander friend was just odd !).