How to Speak Bead

Beaders have a language all their own, would you agree? Go up to any Alice Average on the street and ask her if she knows her car is the same color as Miyuki Delica #528 and she’s going to look at you like you’ve got Silly String for brains. But WE know what we’re talking about, right? Well, most of us. There seems to be a pronunciation struggle going on… and its quite hilarious! But Ok, I’m done giggling behind your backs. I’m going to set the record straight here on a few funny blunders. Let’s begin with a biggie!

Swarovski

Poor Daniel Swarovski. If he only knew what we American’s were calling his crystals. Schworskee. Sah-worskee. Shar-hofskee.

Their name gets butchered every minute of every day in the USA. I can’t think of a family (short of the mafia) that I would want to tick off less. So lets have a little lesson. Here’s a great way to remember it. If you were NEVER going to go skiing again, you’d swear off it, right? Say, I swore off skiing. Now say Swore-off-ski. That’s it, people. The v is pronounced like an f. Simple. Swarovski. Now you know, and Daniel Swarovski’s descendents can rest their ears.

Speaking of Swarovski

Why does this company have to tangle our tongues? Let’s pick on Padparadsha, that gorgeous pink/coral/orange tone that reminds me of the true exact color of the inside of watermelon. We all love the color. But I’m tired of hearing it called Pooka-dooka. Here’s how you say it: Pahd-pa-rahd-sha. Its got that soft a sound. When you look at the word, its sort of phonetic, no? Now you can stop calling it Pad-pa-dookie. Really.

And while we’re still picking on Swarovski

Since we’re struggling with the family name and Padparadsha, they’ve got a lot of nerve coming out with Greige, would you say? I had to look this one up. It said: gra(zh). So I had to go to one of those sites that will tell you audibly what it sounds like, and I was happy to learn it rhymes with beige. I guess that means it’s a cross between gray and beige. Hm. Ok, Swarovski, now you’re ears can stop bleeding. We’ll practice, we swear!

Stones

Is your mouth all limbered up now? Good. Let’s go over the names of a couple of semi-precious stones. The most destroyed stone name out there? In my opinion: peridot. Pair-a-dot. Perry-dot. Is it supposed to be Pair-i-dough? Imagine my horror when I went to dictionary.com and discovered that it gives both pronunciations as correct. Noooooo!!!! That just seems funny. Keep your dots, people. I choose dough.

Another doozy

Chalcedony. Are you struggling with it? I love to stand at the stone table at a bead show and hear everyone say it differently. Is it kal-said-nee, or kal-suh-doe-nee? Well, damn! They’re both right! I hate that… stupid dictionary.com. For those of you who say kal-said-nee. Well, that just sounds silly. There’s  an ‘o’ in there somewhere. Find it!

Those connector things

A lady once came into the bead store and asked tentatively where we kept the class-puh-ses. Classsspppsss. Say it over and over. Can you see her dilemma? It just sounds ridiculous. We should say claspi, like cacti. It would keep our lips from getting tired.

Italian flowers

Millefiori is a beautiful word, both in spelling and saying. But its one people struggle with all the same. It means 1000 flowers in Italian, and is pronounced Millie-fee-or-ee. I’ve been saying mill-uh-four-ee for years. Now I know better. I’ll imagine it as someone’s name: Millie Fiori. There. Done deal.

Aurora Borealis

“I’d like these beads with ABC on them… do you have them?”, she said. I stared at her. I said, “Do you mean AB?” She stared at me. Hm. This seemed simple, but I didn’t want to assume. You know what they say about people who ass/u/me. So after she continued to stare I took a risk and asked if she wanted that rainbow finish on her beads. “YES!”, she said. Oh, that AB is confusing sometimes.

Metal mouth

How about this one: vermeil. Vermeil is gilded bronze, silver or copper. Whether you say vur-may, vur-meel or vur-meyl, you can consider yourself right. You’ll find them all listed under correct pronunciation. The biggest problem is trying to figure out how to say it to begin with.

Try this one

Just for fun, I’m going to throw two more at you. You may or may not know about these words, but they belong in the bead world, and they’re fun. The first one is Givre. Oh, this is a Swarovski word! Of course! Its pronounced ‘zheevrah’ and it means that an opaque color glass has been injected into a transparent glass, creating a random swirl of color inside the bead or crystal. That’s why those crystals are so different in their inside swirls. Cool, hm?

Here’s another

A bead that is primarily a clear bead but has some opaque white with colored striping on it is called a porphyr. There are usually two opaque colors, one usually being white, but the swirling can be in any pattern pretty much. Pretty beads, cool word!

“So you’re writing an article about how we beader’s tend to get tongue tied with some beady words? I never do that! Go ahead and write your article, and I’ll finish up my Schwartzskee Pooka-dookah necklace.”  Eileen Carlson, fellow beader and sarcastic friend.