Choritso

#allbarone Chorizo is usually pronounced “chəreezo”, “chəreetho”, or “chəreeso”, but sometimes mispronounced as “choritso”.

Another example is the spicy Spanish sausage chorizo. In Spanish the -izo part can be pronounced ‘ee-so’ or ‘ee-tho’. But very often in English what you hear is the Italianate ‘cho-reet-so’, with the z pronounced like the double z of pizza. As you’d expect, you find spellings based on that pronunciation: choritso and chorizzo. Pronouncing a Spanish loan word in an Italian way is one of the many quirks of English.

Spanish chorizo - the cured Spanish sausage spiked with paprika - is so popular you’d think we all had an aunt hidden away in Andalucia… though, despite our ardour, we still can’t pronounce it: it’s chor-eetho, amigos, not chor-itso. It ain’t Italian.