I had the occasion today to write a letter using the plural form of madame. How surprised I was to find that the plural is: mesdames. However, at least I didn't have to say it. When I looked at the Random House Unabridged Dictionary's (online) pronunciation, I was shocked: mey-DAM. Yet, the online AHD has it with 2 long as. Which is correct? Clearly, I've not heard it pronounced before.

Originally two words, in French: ma dame 'my lady' and mes dames 'my ladies'. Adjectives in French agree in gender and number with the nouns they modify, e.g., mon ami 'my friend (masc.)' ~ mes amis 'my friends'. I do wish that dictionaries, online and off, would use the IPA for pronunciation. Anything else is bill hooks.

I cringe when I hear "Notre Dame" pronounced the way they do it in Indiana! But what the hell, they call themselves "Irish," but have a French name. Go figure...

I agree, zmj, though I think English teachers should teach IPA pronunciation then. We are all so used to long and short vowel sounds, etc., that it's hard to change.

Teaching IPA in early grades would be good, since older people aren't likely to undertake change. Look how difficult it has been to adopt the metric system in the USA, and how many British are adamantly opposed to it.

If IPA were taught early on, perhaps we in the USA would do better with learning to pronounce words in other languages. Right now guttural (velar) sounds are hard for many of us, since we're mostly front of the mouth speakers.

I suppose I should learn IPA. I can't imagine the trouble it would cause were OEDILF to use it. They are always worried about pronunciations.

When I learnt French at primary school we were taught using a phonetic alphabet. It worked well for me - but then I had no trouble learning how to pronounce Spanish, either - and we didn't use a phonetic alphabet.

Pronunciation (and mimicry) is something I find easy in any case, so maybe my experience is not a good example to use.