Funny, the first time I bought a Moleskine my writing partner and I argued this very same thing. We ended up emailing the company for the official pronunciation, they said it was mole (like the animal) skin (like your the stuff on your body). But like true americans we didn’t consider the other parts of the world.
An excellent example of how non-English languages treat vowels and dipthongs in a way that isn’t fully understood by native English speakers, who aren’t used to the idea of ‘pure’ vowels that are always pronounced the same.
“Many Moleskine users send us enquiries as to which is the correct way of pronouncing the word “Moleskine”. The answer is: there is no predetermined answer.
Moleskine® is a brand name with undefined national identity. And that’s the way we like it. As a literary name, it was used by British travel writer Bruce Chatwin in his book “The Songlines”, referred to the little black notebooks he usually bought from a stationery store in Paris.
Everyone should feel free to pronounce it as he/she prefers. Enjoy.”
mole-sky-n (pronouncing the “skine” as if it were like “mine”)
I used to pronounce it mole-skin, but that’s just because I didn’t notice the E at the end of the actual name.
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MOLE-skin
Apr 20th, 2010 / 1:21 pm
Funny, the first time I bought a Moleskine my writing partner and I argued this very same thing. We ended up emailing the company for the official pronunciation, they said it was mole (like the animal) skin (like your the stuff on your body). But like true americans we didn’t consider the other parts of the world.
Apr 20th, 2010 / 1:47 pm
How do you pronounce “Eyjafjallajökull”?
Apr 20th, 2010 / 3:16 pm
Mole-skin
Apr 20th, 2010 / 4:02 pm
Moe-luh-SKEE-nuh
Apr 20th, 2010 / 9:30 pm
Austin Powers: Yes, nice to mole you–meet you! Nice to meet your mole! Don’t say mole.
…
Austin Powers: Moley-moley-moley-moley-moley!
Apr 20th, 2010 / 10:36 pm
|ˈmōlˌskin|
Apr 21st, 2010 / 5:06 am
Molejkine (spanish with a particular accent from a little town of Alicante)
Apr 21st, 2010 / 7:14 am
An excellent example of how non-English languages treat vowels and dipthongs in a way that isn’t fully understood by native English speakers, who aren’t used to the idea of ‘pure’ vowels that are always pronounced the same.
Apr 21st, 2010 / 8:41 am
I pronunce
– mo(of cow, or mow)
– les (like lês, a close “e” not like “let”)
– ki (kee)
– ne
Apr 21st, 2010 / 4:32 pm
Straight from the Moleskine website:
“Many Moleskine users send us enquiries as to which is the correct way of pronouncing the word “Moleskine”. The answer is: there is no predetermined answer.
Moleskine® is a brand name with undefined national identity. And that’s the way we like it. As a literary name, it was used by British travel writer Bruce Chatwin in his book “The Songlines”, referred to the little black notebooks he usually bought from a stationery store in Paris.
Everyone should feel free to pronounce it as he/she prefers. Enjoy.”
http://www.moleskine.com/about_us/news/moleskine_pronounciation.php
Apr 21st, 2010 / 6:49 pm
thanks for sharing that, @neuralien! very interesting factoid.
Apr 21st, 2010 / 8:18 pm
I used to say “mole skin”, but now I pretend to be fancy by saying “moe-la-skeen-eh”, eh?
Apr 21st, 2010 / 8:21 pm
I guess they’ve changed their story in the past 5 year since I emailed the company. Well I guess it keeps people like us talking about it.
Apr 21st, 2010 / 9:20 pm
Before I watched the video I was pretty sure I knew how it should be pronounced… now I’m not so sure!
Apr 22nd, 2010 / 11:23 am
I think I’m going to say it the fancy Italian way. Is that not were the company is from?
Bu I think Bo has the right question:
“How do you pronounce “Eyjafjallajökull”?”
I’ve been working hard on trying to say it the correct way now for days!
Apr 22nd, 2010 / 11:43 am
I have updated Wikipedia with the appropriate citation and an attempt to render the Italian version in IPA syntax.
Apr 23rd, 2010 / 7:34 am
Mall
es
keane
Apr 24th, 2010 / 4:23 pm
try this: 6hv7c4 (@ tinyurl…)
great video! should do this with other brands
May 28th, 2010 / 4:18 pm
mole-sky-n (pronouncing the “skine” as if it were like “mine”)
I used to pronounce it mole-skin, but that’s just because I didn’t notice the E at the end of the actual name.
Aug 5th, 2010 / 7:42 pm
I pronounce it:
“ridiculously over priced and over rated notebook.”
Dec 13th, 2012 / 12:43 pm