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Why don’t we pronounce the Boston Celtics with a hard ‘C’?



Why don’t we pronounce the Boston Celtics with a hard ‘C’?

by PizzaMan22554

18 Comments

  1. Jaysontatumpepnips

    We can’t say anything right in this region tbf

  2. simpledeadwitches

    Say it both ways out loud and tell me what one sounds better.

  3. Because that used to be the common pronunciation of “Celtic”. Its the same thing with Celtic FC in the Scottish Premier League.

  4. BostonKarlMarx

    the team is older than the repronounciation

  5. Trilogie00

    Not about to walk around calling my team the Keltics.

  6. Tatum-Better

    As a guy who lives in Ireland it’s very weird to not say Keltic. Now people here look at me weird cus I accidentally pronounce celtic the celtics way

  7. Celebration isn’t kelebration. Words starting with Ce are all pronounced with a soft C.

  8. BoringButUniqueUser

    Yea and why do we call worcester worcester and not warchester

  9. Aggressive-Fish5263

    Because fuck you, that’s why. Go green ☘️

  10. CEREALCOUNTSASCOOKIN

    Same reason we pronounce Worcester Worcester.

  11. ForbesBottom500

    I posted this as a reply below, but wanted to add this to OP’s thread, cuz I love etymology and I love the Boston Celtics:
    What about “cembalo” or “cello”? 🇮🇹🤌🤌. Or “cephalopod”? If you’re a man of culture, you know that “sef” would be the wrong way to start that very very Greek word 🇬🇷.
    We can thank the stinkin’ French 🏳️🇫🇷🏳️🤢 for softening the leading C in the English language, that was a 9th-12th century development as the world shifted from Latin. Gaelic speakers were largely isolated from this phenomena. But I do like that we started pronouncing “V” instead of “W” around then. “Weni Widi Wici” doesn’t hit the same.
    So it IS weird that “Celtic” became “sell-tik” and not “kell-tik” , but mostly cuz Irish doesn’t use soft C’s… Why? There’s no K in Gaelic or Welch 🇮🇪
    “We have gotten to a state of consciousness in English now where we try to pronounce words and names from other languages the way that they would have us pronounce them” -James Harbeck, linguist and author

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