When, and for what reason did the pronunciation of the brand name "Nestle" change?

Question

I remember adverts for Nestle's Milky Bar, where Nestle's was pronounced NESS-ELLS

I suppose it's the same silly beggars that try and make us say Beijing instead of Peking!

http://www.chocolatereview.co.uk/chocforum/forum_posts.asp?TID=4897&PID=125402

Hang about guys.......Nestle themselves used the pronunciation NESS-ELLS in their Television advertising!

I suppose some nitwit will make us say Paree for Paris next!

Answer 1

yes you're right, I remember the song for the milky bars. Nesels milky bars!

Answer 2

First: Ancient Hebrew had neither a hard-J sound nor a W sound. So YHWH itself would be wrong. So would be JHVH. Your best bet would be to start with YHVH. Now, that said, there are multiple places you could put vowels in there -- start, end, and between the YH, the HV, and VH. Further, as best I have been able to tell, it is possible to have two vowels in between the YH, the HV, and the VH. When I calculated it out, there were over 100,000,000 (one hundred million) possible combinations. Ancient Hebrew had no means for denoting vowels, and the knowledge of how to pronounce the name was only shared amongst the Gadol Kohen (the High Priests). When vowel marks were added to Hebrew, the vowels for Adonai were often written under the Tetragrammaton in order to remind readers to say Adonai instead of trying to pronounce the Tetregrammaton -- but these were not necessarily the correct vowels and almost certainly were NOT. So... let's take out that combination. That leaves you 99,999,999 possible pronounciations. Good luck finding the right one.

Answer 3

Nestles is a Swiss company from the French speaking part of Switzerland and the name is Nestlé pronounced Nesslay.
China changed the name Peking (a feeble European attempt to pronounce Beijing) some years ago.
Guandong (a province in Southern China) was mis-pronounced Canton) and became Cantonese when talking about the Chinese dialect spoken in Hong Kong and also the typical cuisine from the region.
Several Indian cities have reverted to their original local Indian names, for example Bombay is now Mumbai and Madras is now Chennai.
Strangely, although Burma has been Myanmar for at least a decade, people still insist on calling it Burma.
Names are names, they should not be translated. Transliteration (changing from one alphabet to another) presents problems, but it should at least try to approximate the original pronunciation.
Nicola - Switzerland isn't in the EU!

Answer 4

Well, now that the world is getting smaller, and there's more communication between different countries and cultures, I suppose it becomes more important to do people the honour of pronouncing their names right.

I say "Ness-ells" and "Peking". But if I ever went to (say) Peking, I'd call it "Beijing". Just out of politeness.

Answer 5

In the mid-80s, the UK TV ad campaign for Milky Bar changed from saying "Nessulls Milky Bar!" to "Nes-lay Milky Bar!" in deference to the Swiss firm. People at the Nestle factory in Hayes, Middlesex still say "Nessulls", especially when referring to the road "Nestles Avenue". Ironically, the guy who founded the firm was born Heinrich Nestle in Germany, where "Nestle" is pronounced "Nest-ler" or "Nest-lee", with a hard T - unlike the English or French pronounciations!

Answer 6

Well its a Swiss company, and in Switzerland/Europe it is pronounced the French way ie. NestLAY. It has only been pronounced NESS-ELLS in the US which was wrong in the first place, so I guess the powers that be decided to correct the situation.

Answer 7

Yup, always was nessels in my youth. However it's Swiss and the REAL (drum roll) pronunciation is Ness-lay. It has an acute accent on the E making it so (at least to a French speaker).

Answer 8

Hey, I used to work there about 30 years ago. They have/had a plant in Chesterville Ontario. There they prounced it Nest-lees. I remember the advert as a kid:
"N-e-s-t-l-e-s, Nes-lees makes the very best ......., chocolate"

FYI. When they made products in Chesterville for the US market they always added more sugar than the Canadian formula.

Answer 9

Because the company was started by Henri Nestle' who was born in Germany, and that's the way his name is pronounced.

The Chinese government changed the name of Peking to Beijing because they wanted to, and since it is their country, they can do that without asking anyone's permission.

If you don't believe me, google Henri Nestle'

Answer 10

It always was Ness - lay but, being English and therefore intolerant of foreign pronunciations, we pronounced it Nessles. We also pronounce Paris as spelled when it should be Partee, Vienna should be Veen (Wien) Renault used to be Ren olt but is now Ren oh and so on.