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The pronounciation of Bvlgari

post #1 of 32
4/8/09 at 7:27am
Thread Starter 
Seems pretty obvious, even to me a beginner, that Bvlgari is pronounced Bulgari considering the variation of spelling is prominent online.

This would lead me to believe that Bvlgari Blv is pronounced Bulgari Blu. Even this site's description says it's prnounced "blu".

So you would imagine I was surprised and a little offended when my request for a return for a bottle of Bvlgari Blv with a broken sprayer was met with a harsh "there's no such product." Whereupon I said "BEE ELL VEE" and she said "oh Bvlgari B L V, OK, we'll send you a prepaid label and send you out a new one when we get the bad one."

Why does a popular internet perfume reseller not have a staff that knows how to pronounce the common names of products in the business?

This was Scented Monkey BTW.
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post #2 of 32
4/8/09 at 7:42am
i don't think you should feel offended. i think it's reasonable to expect that an online store employees know very little about the product. they could be selling office supplies -- it would be the same. online discounters are a transaction business so this is to be expected..
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post #3 of 32
4/8/09 at 7:55am
Actually I can explain you the reason of all.
What you write as Bvlgari is actually Bulgari: the point is that one of the main inspiration and traditional theme for the fine italian jewelry brand is the classic roman empire and its architectural and decotation style. So that's why the italian Bulgari is written with the roman latin alphabet lacking the character u (but not the sound) and replacing it with a v. Hence the brand Bvlgari is pronounced as Bulgari (pronounced Bool-gua like in guardian-ry)
and Blv is pronounced as Blu.
Hope it will help.
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post #4 of 32
4/8/09 at 2:56pm
I'm not entirely surprised though - a girl here at my office told me she was wearing Bulgari B-L-V one day when I asked her. It took me a minute to realize what she meant.
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post #5 of 32
4/8/09 at 2:58pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by kess View Post

i don't think you should feel offended. i think it's reasonable to expect that an online store employees know very little about the product. they could be selling office supplies -- it would be the same. online discounters are a transaction business so this is to be expected..

Well, it was the tone this lady used when "informing" me that there was no such thing. Like I was an idiot when I knew in fact I was saying it right. She was so matter-of-fact and sure just like that no-it-all in your office that runs her mouth about everything but doesn't know anything about what she's talking about.

I started to question her statement but decided instead that I just wanted the return info and to be done with the phone call.

It ended well enough but I was guessing that scented monkey was small potatoes and had personable staff with knowledge in their product. They have good prices but I'll think twice before asking them for help on the phone.
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post #6 of 32
4/8/09 at 3:21pm
Vnbelievable!
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post #7 of 32
4/9/09 at 11:49am
Quote:
Originally Posted by mikeperez23 View Post

Vnbelievable!

.
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post #8 of 32
4/11/09 at 10:04pm
Spot on with traditional Latin not having U, J, or W.
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post #9 of 32
4/12/09 at 12:52am
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Magnifiscent View Post

Actually I can explain you the reason of all.
What you write as Bvlgari is actually Bulgari: the point is that one of the main inspiration and traditional theme for the fine italian jewelry brand is the classic roman empire and its architectural and decotation style. So that's why the italian Bulgari is written with the roman latin alphabet lacking the character u (but not the sound) and replacing it with a v. Hence the brand Bvlgari is pronounced as Bulgari (pronounced Bool-gua like in guardian-ry)
and Blv is pronounced as Blu.
Hope it will help.


Bvlgari fan here, thanks for the info! btw ive been pronouncing it with the "u" as well and im glad im not too far off!
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post #10 of 32
1/30/13 at 3:05am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Magnifiscent View Post

Actually I can explain you the reason of all.
What you write as Bvlgari is actually Bulgari: the point is that one of the main inspiration and traditional theme for the fine italian jewelry brand is the classic roman empire and its architectural and decotation style. So that's why the italian Bulgari is written with the roman latin alphabet lacking the character u (but not the sound) and replacing it with a v. Hence the brand Bvlgari is pronounced as Bulgari (pronounced Bool-gua like in guardian-ry)
and Blv is pronounced as Blu.
Hope it will help.



Thank you for this detailed explanation Magnifiscent! I was always leary of pronouncing the name and this actually is a good way to remember how to say it. This info correlates to those Art History courses I took in college.
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post #11 of 32
1/30/13 at 3:50am
LOL when I first began collecting fragrances, I spent alot of energy learning how to pronounce French and Italian words, one of my pet peeves is mispronounciation...There are some nice websites that will let you type in a word, choose a language, and it will literally speak the word to you. Helped me with words like "Sillage" and "Gourmand"
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post #12 of 32
1/30/13 at 3:52am
Can't believe that happened in the VSA.
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post #13 of 32
1/30/13 at 3:53am
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post #14 of 32
1/30/13 at 2:40pm
Wow, those guys made 100K doing stupid videos...
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post #15 of 32
1/30/13 at 3:05pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marais View Post


Dang you beat me to it!!!
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post #16 of 32
1/30/13 at 4:19pm
Have heard it pronounced so many ways, and it has evolved like language......so is there really a correct way?

Sotiris Boulgaris was Greek and as there is no *v* in Greek rather *beta* which can sound like *vita* it was originally *voulgaris*......hearing it pronounced in France, Italy and the UK......it always sounds different to me and I have to stop and take it in. From *vulgari*(soft v), to *bulgari* with changes from emphasis on the different phonemes of the word.
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post #17 of 32
1/30/13 at 6:24pm
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Why not just pronounce it like 99% of the English speaking buying public, as "Bhul Gary"?

After all in the long run usage ultimately dictates pronunciation: i.e.
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post #18 of 32
1/30/13 at 6:31pm
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Why not just pronounce it like 99% of the English speaking buying public, as "Bul Gary"?

Listen, if Worchester, MA can be WIS-TAH then Bvlgari can be BulGary..
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post #19 of 32
1/30/13 at 6:32pm
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Why not just pronounce it like 99% of the English speaking buying public, as "Bul Gary"?

Listen, if Worchester, MA can be WIS-TAH then Bvlgari can be BulGary..
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post #20 of 32
1/30/13 at 6:41pm
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Thanks BN lag for the triple post opportunity.
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post #21 of 32
1/30/13 at 8:30pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by kbe View Post

Why not just pronounce it like 99% of the English speaking buying public, as "Bul Gary"?

Listen, if Worchester, MA can be WIS-TAH then Bvlgari can be BulGary..

Right about that!
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post #22 of 32
1/30/13 at 9:11pm
This thread is a good reminder about word pronounciation and how important it can be. Dealing with customers most of the day on the telephone, I am often reminded about pronouncing not only their names correctly but the product they are inquiring about correctly. It's a pet peeve for me as well.
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post #23 of 32
1/31/13 at 1:25am
Quote:
Originally Posted by kbe View Post

Why not just pronounce it like 99% of the English speaking buying public, as "Bhul Gary"?

After all in the long run usage ultimately dictates pronunciation: i.e.

Because that just reinforces to the rest of the world Americans ethnocentricity...
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post #24 of 32
1/31/13 at 1:44am
Quote:
Originally Posted by kbe View Post

Why not just pronounce it like 99% of the English speaking buying public, as "Bul Gary"?

99% getting it wrong doesn't make it right. You probably wouldn't enjoy it either if 99% of the time people get your name wrong and mangle the pronunciation.
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post #25 of 32
1/31/13 at 1:45am
duplicate again, BN?
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post #26 of 32
1/31/13 at 4:44pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by kbe View Post

Why not just pronounce it like 99% of the English speaking buying public, as "Bhul Gary"?
After all in the long run usage ultimately dictates pronunciation: i.e.

I would recommend to watch something like Baraka, Cosmos or BBC's Planet Earth to get a hint of the human being and where we live. Also, read this.


Quote:
Originally Posted by hednic View Post

Right about that!

I guess you enjoy pizza's and other 'american' stuff. I know you never read beyond the first post, so whatever, keep pushing your post count!


Quote:
Originally Posted by Diamondflame View Post

99% getting it wrong doesn't make it right. You probably wouldn't enjoy it either if 99% of the time people get your name wrong and mangle the pronunciation.

They don't seem to display any kind of cultural knowledge besides 'their' own, probably religious.
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post #27 of 32
2/2/13 at 7:13pm
That's actually pretty funny. It's not just online retailers that are clueless. I was recently at a very high end department store fragrance counter discussing the Tom Ford Private Blend collection with the SA. I mentioned that I did not see Japon Noir among the bottles they had for sale and asked if it had been discontinued and she told me there was no such fragrance. Really? That's funny because there are reviews for it all over the Internet and Luca Turin reviewed it in the A-Z guide. I wish at least a majority of fragrance SA's were actually people who had a passion for fragrance.
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post #28 of 32
2/3/13 at 1:01pm
I think its amusing when a SA does mispronounce a frag at a "high"end store I wonder how they would say Japon Noir?. If I didn't speak french I could think of several ways to mangle that.
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post #29 of 32
2/3/13 at 1:31pm
Lol YouTube clip

I pronounce it like this, bulgary
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post #30 of 32
2/3/13 at 1:38pm
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Possum-Pie View Post

Because that just reinforces to the rest of the world Americans ethnocentricity...

Right...

We Americans are the only world population with ethnocentricity and pronounciations of foreign words that tend to favor our 'native' language (English, Spanish, Creole, French, German, Swedish, Portugese, Russian, Romanian, Italian, Finnish, Bulgarian, Yiddish etc.,) and its accents, meter and syntax. Got it.
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post #31 of 32
2/3/13 at 1:45pm
I always resort to the television commercials to learn how to properly pronounce a fragrance by its name.
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post #32 of 32
2/5/13 at 8:25am
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From Wikipedia

Bulgari (Italian pronunciation: [ˈbulɡari])...

is an Italian luxury Company, which has been owned by the French firm LVMH since October 2011. The trademark is usually written BVLGARI in the classical Latin alphabet (where V = English U), and is derived from the surname of the company's Greek founder, Sotirios Voulgaris (Greek: Σωτήριος Βούλγαρης, Greek pronunciation: [soˈtirjos ˈvulɣaris], Italian: Sotirio Bulgari, 1857–1932).

Quote:
Originally Posted by Diamondflame View Post

99% getting it wrong doesn't make it right. You probably wouldn't enjoy it either if 99% of the time people get your name wrong and mangle the pronunciation.

'bulgary' is close enough to be considered correct and apparently the 99% are getting it right this time
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