COLUMN: Caprese

I didn't want to have an existential crisis. I just wanted to watch TV. And now I need your help to find out if my entire grasp on reality is broken.

Stop what you're doing right now and think about a salad. Not just ANY salad. Think about that fancy Italian salad that's comprised of fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, and sweet basil. Do you know the salad I'm talking about? If so, say its name out loud right now.

I'm referring to a caprese salad. Hopefully you're familiar.

For 52 years, I've lived a relatively comfortable existence, fully and completely convinced that the word "caprese" was, is, and has always been pronounced "ka-PREE-zee." You know, like "breezy."

Tonight, I was in the kitchen doing dishes. As is often the case, the TV in my front room was blaring some rerun for background noise while I tidied up the joint after dinner. That's when an ad came on for Jimmy John's. Apparently they've got a new menu offering for the spring season: a "Caprese Salami Pesto Sandwich," which actually sounds pretty good, right?

Except one thing. When the announcer pronounced it, he called it a "ka-PRAY-ZAY" sandwich. Ka-PRAY-ZAY, with hard exaggerated American ayyyys. It was so weird, I walked straight out of the kitchen with wet, soapy hands. I rewound the DVR. I'd heard it correctly. "Ka-PRAY-ZAY." 

There's no way I've been running around for fifty-two years straight-up mispronouncing "caprese," is there? "Ka-PRAY-ZAY" sounds ridiculous, but who am I to question the vernacular validity of Jimmy John's? The mispronounciation of words has long been a hang-up of mine. I hate when other people do it, and I'm appalled when I do it. I think it goes back to elementary school, when I was addicted to reading Hardy Boys mysteries. Joe Hardy has a recurring girlfriend throughout those books. Her name is Iola.

I had never heard the name Iola, nor have I ever heard it since (probably because we don't live in 1927 when those characters were invented.) I still have no earthly idea how you're supposed to say the name Iola. Is it "eye-ola?" "ee-ola?" "yola?" Whenever she'd pop up in a story, I'd cringe and come full stop. I often wondered if even Joe Hardy knew how to say her name. "Say, fellas, you've met my girlfriend, right? Guys, this is... umm... Eye-hole-ay?"

It's one thing to struggle with pronounciation, but it's another thing to discover you've been blindly mispronouncing a word for years. After finishing up in the kitchen, I went straight to Google and searched "caprese" for the final verdict. Not only does it give you the Oxford dictionary pronounciation guide for the word, it also gives you a recording where you can listen to the correct pronounciation of the word. 

Immediately a voice came on and, with confidence, said "ka-PRAY-zee." It's... wait, WHAT? Google gave me a THIRD pronounciation of the word different from the way I've been saying caprese my whole life AND different than the Jimmy John's ad. According to Google, "caprese" should rhyme with crazy or lazy. I'm so confused.

I tried Googling "how to pronounce caprese" to see if I could find answers. Instead, Google pulled up a DIFFERENT pronounciation guide with a DIFFERENT recording, and THAT one said "ka-PRAY-ZAY" just like the Jimmy John's ad. So even Google's confused and offers two completely different pronounciations of "caprese," but NEITHER of them rhyme with "breezy," so I'm pretty sure I'm a moron.

There is, incidentally, a Youtube video entitled "How To Pronounce Caprese Correctly." In it, an Italian native instructs on the proper way to say "caprese," which involves rolling the "r" and doing that Italian trill thing where the "R" kinda sounds like an "L" and it ends up like "ka-PLLLAY-zay." But frankly, I don't trust any language where the word "bruschetta" is somehow pronounced "brew-sketta."  

I'm officially declaring caprese anarchy. I'm gonna keep saying it like "ka-preezy." Feel free to say it like "schnauzer" for all I care. Caprese salads don't exactly come up much in day-to-day conservation. If you're silly enough to pay good money for a hunk of cheese and a tomato and some basil and think you're getting an amazing salad, then you're silly enough to say "caprese" however you fancy. I'm just worried it's the tip of the iceberg and I'm about to find out the word "chair" should be pronouned "tz-ay-ruh" or something. 

So I guess pull up a tzayruh if you've ever been a member of the Mispronounciation Club. We'll be the ones in the corner -- and we need more dressing for our salads.