I Love Lucy: English Pronunciation

Published on May 26, 2015 by Amanda Aiello
YouTube: I love Lucy english Pronunciation

50sLucy.com - May 16/2017
Ricky Reads a Bedtime story
In the I Love Lucy episode, "Lucy Hires An English Tutor" (Season 2, 12/29/52) Lucy decides she only wants the best English for her baby. When she gives Ricky a book to read aloud, he butchers several words with the "ough" sound.

In this hilarious scene, the writers make fun of Ricky's English with the words bough, rough, through and cough.

In real life, Desi Arnaz completed high school in Florida and was bilingual, speaking and reading both English and Spanish fluently.

The book that Lucy gives Ricky to read from is actually a "Peter Pan" children's book published by Wonder Books in 1952. It even had washable covers! The prop department deleted the title "Peter Pan" for the scene but one can detect the characters in the front cover.


The English Blog - March 29/2016
Video: I Love Lucy - Pronouncing 'ough' in English
Believe it or not, the letter combination 'ough' can be pronounced in at least ten different ways in English! This hilarious clip from the classic fifties sitcom 'I Love Lucy' in which Lucy gets her Cuban American husband to read a children's story, illustrates a few of them.

Personal Note
Over the years, I've taken my fair share of language classes. I have a great deal of respect for those who are bilingual, trilingual, even polyglot. I forget, though, the difficulties of my mother tongue. Geesh, did I think French had a lot of exceptions to the rule? Welcome to English, a nightmare if there ever was one! Ha, ha, ha! Good luck one and all in whatever language you undertake. :-)

References

Wikipedia: I Love Lucy
I Love Lucy is an American television sitcom that originally ran on CBS from October 15, 1951, to May 6, 1957, with a total of 180 half-hour episodes spanning 6 seasons (including the 'lost' original pilot and Christmas episode). The show starred Lucille Ball, her real-life husband Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, and William Frawley. It followed the life of Lucy Ricardo (Ball), a middle class housewife in New York City, who either concocted plans with her best friends (Vance & Frawley) to appear alongside her bandleader husband Ricky Ricardo (Arnaz) in his nightclub, or tried numerous schemes to mingle with, or be a part of show business. After the series ended in 1957, a modified version continued for three more seasons with 13 one-hour specials; it ran from 1957 to 1960. It was first known as The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show and later in reruns as The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour. Following the end of that, Ball divorced Arnaz and appeared in three other sitcoms into 1986.

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