Joy in the Sounds of French

       Connie's working on a jigsaw puzzle.  I couldn't recall which French painter did the painting.  I thought it was Seurat, but it turned out to be another Frenchman, Renoir. 

       Suddenly I was sounding off with Seur-AT...Ren-OIR...De-GAS!  Surprisingly, though those accented last syllables all end with different consonants, they are all effectually silent, and though the vowels in these final syllables differ, all effectively have the same sound; so it comes out like this:

                      sir-AH   rin-WAH   day-GAH

Engage with the French pronunciation, exaggerate a bit, and have some fun saying them!

       I always liked the contrasting ways of saying "Julius Caesar":
                      Latin:  YUHL-ius KIE-sahr (harsh to my ear)
                      French:  JHOOL say-ZAHR (oh by far the slickest, coolest)
                      English:  JOOL-ius SEE-zir (somewhere in between).