"Gee-ro" "Eu-ro" or "Jai-ro": Regardless of the Pronunciation, Gyro From Mr. G's a Welcome Break from B-B-Q

A typical "Yee-ro" waits to be bit.

I know most of you females out there are still pissed about the Casey Anthony verdict but I for one am glad it is over. After gorging the 4th and watching the cable coverage of the verdict on the 5th, today I was about as sick of watching that "reality show" trial as I was of B-B-Q pork, ribs, and chicken. So today I left the Gump in search of something that would not taste or remind me of "que" nor be too filling. The only other requirement was that it have no televisions replaying the same old tired gasps and gaffes and rehashed pundit soundbites relating to this year's "trial of the century."

Since I lunched at Green Papaya last week, the Lunch in the Gump contenders for today were: (1) a Sushi Cafe bento box, (2) some fainting goat from India Palace or (3) a gyro from Mr. G's. All are solid lunch spots previously reviewed by LITG. All serve un-American food which is not meant to sound unpatriotic. Finally, none to my knowledge have visible TV screens or at least the ones they have are tuned to some channel where they do not speak English. The winner was Mr. G's due to the need to do some business near AUM. I chose wisely. Perhaps better than the jury in Orlando. My Greek salad and Gyro at Mr. G's was just what the doctor ordered if not a little pricey at $11.57 with water. Our prior review of Mr. G's can be seen here.

But, I ask, how do you order it? I mean, how do you really pronounce the "G" in Gyro as it has been Americanized or Montgumphrized? Apparently, failing to pronounce Gyro properly in some cities is a mark of shame or cause for disdain.

To find the answer I went to where most Americans go today for misinformation: The Internet via Google (Follow the links to see the source).

I found there is a Facebook group named: "F*ck People Who Cannot Pronounce Gyro Properly." It is a group dedicated to the revolution against people who say jee-ro, G-roe and, especially, against french people who decide to pluralize and say jeeros. They conclude: "There are a million Greek restaurants, be a man!"

There are also those who get a kick out of trying to pronounce the word Gyro while showing pictures of weird looking birds. They provide all the possible mis-pronunciations and some pretty funny bird pictures.

Three girls from California, out one drunken night, decided to do an interview of a Greek Gyro vendor in Portland, Oregon as to the proper way to pronounce "Gyro." The very authentic result was "Heros."

Posters on Chowhound seek the answer because they: "Almost hate to order one since everyone in the gyro line is pronouncing it differently. Yarg." One "rockandroller" offered this reply: "Nobody pronounces it right and the people in the restaurants are used to it. The most egregious pronunciation sounds like "jai-roe" with the "jai" sounding like "pie." You're better off just trying "hee-roh" like "hero" but with a little longer "e". The correct pronunciation is actually a soft "g" which is very hard for most Americans to get right." However, I also learned that "heeroh" cannot be right because the letter "h" disappeared from the Greek alphabet 1500 years ago. They say "Yee-roh" is the correct standard Greek.

Believe it or not, the pronunciation of Gyro is the subject of a chapter in a literary journal named Linguist. You will be enlightened to know that some guy from the Department on Linguistics at the University of Illinois has gotten his masters in the study of how Gyro is pronounced differently in the South and East Coast from the North and West Coast. The explanation of the Greek pronunciation is as typically clear as most scholarly writing:

"In Greek, the word is spelled with an initial gamma, which is generally pronounced as a palatal glide before front vowels, so the posters in some gyros restaurants instructing customers to "Say yee-ros" are not bad guides to "authentic" pronunciation. Apparently there is some dialectal variation even among native Greek speakers, however, and some pronounce the gamma as a voiced or voiceless velar fricative, or even as a voiced alveo-palatal fricative."

Say it in "frickin" English next time why don't you? Can you imagine getting paid to travel to Boise, Idaho, to eat a Gyro and listen to how it is pronounced? Illinois tax dollars at work. I am sure they are proud.

I, for one, am more interested in how to properly eat a Gyro. One guy tried to show me on you tube, but how can you trust a guy who pronounces it like the people on the Facebook group hate? He was a sloppy eater too.

The ingredients of a Gyro include "Gyro Meat" from the elusive "Spirogyra" goat.

In any event, regardless of how it is pronounced, the Gyro at Mr. G's was very good. Served with an interesting variation of a Greek salad by a waitress from Millbrook who couldn't care less how I pronounced Gyro, it was the perfect lunch for me at this point in time. I also appreciated Gus P. stopping by to make sure I was satisfied.

Now, if we could only get over this Casey Anthony circus of the dis-functional family...

Αντίο!