Threaded Order Chronological Order
| Is it Les Mis or Les Miz? And has it changed over time? | |
| Posted by: mikem 11:41 am EDT 09/01/20 | |
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| (spoiler for yesterday's NY Times crossword puzzle) Yesterday's NY Times crossword puzzle had LESMIZ as one of the answers, referencing the musical, which caused some conversation in the crossword world about whether it should have been LESMIS (with a corresponding change in the crossing clue). Interestingly, someone posted a Google ngram comparing the two, which showed that prior to the musical, neither was common. But from 1985 to around 2000, Les Miz was more common. Someone said that the original Broadway production used Les Miz in its advertising. From 2000 to 2010, the two forms were roughly equally common, but since 2010, Les Mis has become much more common. And the current official website is lesmis.com . Any thoughts about Les Mis vs Les Miz? Relevant dates: the show opened in London in 1985, and played on Broadway from 1987 to 2003 in the original run. The movie came out in 2012. |
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| Link | The ngram comparing Les Mis and Les Miz over time |
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| Glad to find there are other crossword puzzle fans on this board! | |
| Posted by: mikem 11:28 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
| In reply to: Is it Les Mis or Les Miz? And has it changed over time? - mikem 11:41 am EDT 09/01/20 | |
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| Glad to find there are some other crossword puzzle fans on this board! I've done them casually for years, but I've really gotten into them during the pandemic. I did an online crossword puzzle tournament a few weeks ago, which was a lot of fun. Crosswords often have theater-related clues. OBIE is a big one, because it has 3 vowels. Ben VEREEN crops up pretty often. I saw Kelli O'Hara clued in a puzzle recently. |
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| re: Glad to find there are other crossword puzzle fans on this board! | |
| Posted by: sirpupnyc 11:50 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
| In reply to: Glad to find there are other crossword puzzle fans on this board! - mikem 11:28 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
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| LEN Cariou and AUDRA McDonald, too. I used to do them on the subway going to work and back, but then I got a Kindle and started reading instead. When Broadway shut down I was almost four years behind on the NYT puzzle. Now it's a year and a few months. |
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| re: Glad to find there are other crossword puzzle fans on this board! | |
| Last Edit: mikem 03:38 pm EDT 09/02/20 | |
| Posted by: mikem 03:37 pm EDT 09/02/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Glad to find there are other crossword puzzle fans on this board! - sirpupnyc 11:50 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
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| I think Len Cariou and Len Deighton are the only famous Lens around! They both appear pretty often. I've done a lot of crosswords during the pandemic, and it's really helped my skills. A year ago, I couldn't complete the NY Times puzzle on most days. Now, I'm sure I can do every puzzle except Saturday, which only falls about 2/3 of the time. One of the co-organizers of the online tournament I did is a theater guy who's performed at the Muny many times. The tournament is usually once a year but they indicated they might do it again sooner than that. I hope they do; it was a lot of fun! |
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| For crossword purposes... | |
| Last Edit: MockingbirdGirl 05:22 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
| Posted by: MockingbirdGirl 05:21 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
| In reply to: Is it Les Mis or Les Miz? And has it changed over time? - mikem 11:41 am EDT 09/01/20 | |
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| ... it could be either. That's one of the things that makes it a good puzzle word! (Personally, I went with in LESMI_ until I was certain.) | |
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| re: For crossword purposes... | |
| Posted by: Chromolume 06:01 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
| In reply to: For crossword purposes... - MockingbirdGirl 05:21 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
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| Personally, I went with in LESMI_ until I was certain. Which, I assume, meant that your puzzle solving was less miserable than it might have been. ;-) |
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| re: Is it Les Mis or Les Miz? And has it changed over time? | |
| Posted by: charles1055 01:51 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
| In reply to: Is it Les Mis or Les Miz? And has it changed over time? - mikem 11:41 am EDT 09/01/20 | |
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| I had Moulin for a bit till I realized that was not the hit Parisian musical they were referencing... | |
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| re: Is it Les Mis or Les Miz? And has it changed over time? | |
| Posted by: dlevy 01:31 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
| In reply to: Is it Les Mis or Les Miz? And has it changed over time? - mikem 11:41 am EDT 09/01/20 | |
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| The marketing companies that work on the show part ways on this -- it's Les Miz in the US and Les Mis in the UK. (See, for example, their respective Twitter handles.) | |
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| It's neither. nmi | |
| Posted by: Ann 12:23 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
| In reply to: Is it Les Mis or Les Miz? And has it changed over time? - mikem 11:41 am EDT 09/01/20 | |
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| “Les Miz With a Z” | |
| Posted by: showtunetrivia 07:35 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
| In reply to: It's neither. nmi - Ann 12:23 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
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| Because SOMEBODY had to do it. It’s Les Miz with a Z Not Les Mis with an S Because Les Mis with an S goes Ssssss It’s Z instead of S, Bees instead of snakes It’s simple as can be, see, Les Miz Now, if the show were Can-Can It’d still be Can-Can, Even backwards, it’d be Can-Can Or, if the show were Fanny Then it’d be Fanny—because with Fanny, what can you do? Or Amour or Silk Stockings or Gigi or Carnival But when it’s Les Miz, you have to say... It’s Les Miz with a Z, Not Les Mis with an S Because Les Mis with an S goes Ssss Bees instead of snakes, simple as can be, Les Miz Ah, and that’s only the half of it There’s another way we argue cruelly How do you say the location of the show? It’s Paris with an S, Not Par-ee with an E, Because Par-ee with an E Is French, not English. Laura |
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| re: “Les Miz With a Z” | |
| Posted by: Chromolume 08:31 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
| In reply to: “Les Miz With a Z” - showtunetrivia 07:35 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
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| Laura - you are the best!! ;-) (But - wouldn't Can-Can backwards be Nac-Nac??) |
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| re: “Les Miz With a Z” | |
| Posted by: showtunetrivia 09:32 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
| In reply to: re: “Les Miz With a Z” - Chromolume 08:31 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
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| My daughter said the same thing! Laura, more dissatisfied with poor scansion, despite her intention to go for effect |
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| re: Is it Les Mis or Les Miz? And has it changed over time? | |
| Posted by: sirpupnyc 11:50 am EDT 09/01/20 | |
| In reply to: Is it Les Mis or Les Miz? And has it changed over time? - mikem 11:41 am EDT 09/01/20 | |
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| It's usually Z in the crossword, I think. But it's one of those answers where you know it and still can't fill in the final letter. An ETA/ETD sort of answer. "Don't Miz Out" was an ad line for the original Broadway run for a while, wasn't it? |
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| re: Is it Les Mis or Les Miz? And has it changed over time? | |
| Posted by: NewtonUK 12:57 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Is it Les Mis or Les Miz? And has it changed over time? - sirpupnyc 11:50 am EDT 09/01/20 | |
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| Both are accepted and used. 'Les Mis' is the correct version, as an abbreviation of the French work Miserables. In French the 's' is pronounced as 'z'. In the US, especially, the spelling Les Miz developed quickly, because that's what it the American spelling would be to get it to sound right. | |
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| re: Is it Les Mis or Les Miz? And has it changed over time? | |
| Last Edit: KingSpeed 03:30 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
| Posted by: KingSpeed 03:26 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Is it Les Mis or Les Miz? And has it changed over time? - NewtonUK 12:57 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
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| Actually, s is most often silent in French. Esp at the end of a word. But whether you’re saying the word spelled “miserable” in French or English, the “s” is a “z” sound. | |
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| No, that's not true | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 04:56 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Is it Les Mis or Les Miz? And has it changed over time? - KingSpeed 03:26 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
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| Speaking generally, S is often voiced in French. The S at the end of a word is only silent if the following word begins with a consonant. So, for example, "très fatigue" is pronounced "tray fat-ee-gay" with the S silent. But if the following word begins with a vowel, then the S is pronounced as a Z. So, for example, "très amusant" is pronounced "tray za-mu-zant". This is called an elision, is it's a primary reason why French sentences glide so fluidly from word to word (which can be particularly hard for listening comprehension for beginner speakers). | |
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| re: No, that's not true | |
| Posted by: Chromolume 06:00 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
| In reply to: No, that's not true - Singapore/Fling 04:56 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
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| Speaking generally, S is often voiced in French. And of course I know you mean "pronounced," as opposed to the IPA distinctions between a "voiced" S (the "Z" sound") and an "unvoiced" S (the "S" sound) - both of which are used in French. :-) |
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| re: No, that's not true | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 06:46 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
| In reply to: re: No, that's not true - Chromolume 06:00 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
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| Alas, I never took my IPA class. :-) | |
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| re: No, that's not true | |
| Posted by: sirpupnyc 07:11 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
| In reply to: re: No, that's not true - Singapore/Fling 06:46 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
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| Just once, I want a crossword clue to mean that IPA... (The one that always comes to mind first.) | |
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| re: No, that's not true | |
| Posted by: Chromolume 08:30 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
| In reply to: re: No, that's not true - sirpupnyc 07:11 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
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| There was a fun production of My Fair Lady in Boston a few years ago, in which the set design had walls with phonetic symbols all over them. I thought it was a neat design - and kept saying that here was one show where you could get your IPA during the show instead of going out for one after...;-) | |
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| re: No, that's not true | |
| Posted by: MockingbirdGirl 08:43 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
| In reply to: re: No, that's not true - Chromolume 08:30 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
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| Based on the famous play by George Bernard Schwa? Yeah, I know. I'll get my coat. |
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| Ouch ;-P | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 08:48 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
| In reply to: re: No, that's not true - MockingbirdGirl 08:43 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
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| Hysterical. And painful. | |
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| re: No, that's not true | |
| Posted by: Chromolume 08:45 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
| In reply to: re: No, that's not true - MockingbirdGirl 08:43 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
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| Based on the famous play by George Bernard Schwa? By George, you've got it. ;-) |
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| All-female version | |
| Posted by: BruceinIthaca 09:48 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
| In reply to: re: No, that's not true - Chromolume 08:45 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
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| Let's not forget the all-female, feminist version, no doubt starring Bobbi Adler as Jeanne Valerie Jeanne: Les Ms. | |
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| re: Is it Les Mis or Les Miz? And has it changed over time? | |
| Posted by: Chromolume 01:10 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Is it Les Mis or Les Miz? And has it changed over time? - NewtonUK 12:57 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
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| 'Les Mis' is the correct version, as an abbreviation of the French word Miserables. I don't think that "mis" is ever a "correct abbreviation" for the word "miserables." Only in Musical Theatre Land would that happen lol. I'm sure if I told a French speaker "Je suis mis" I'd just get a blank stare instead of sympathy. ;-) |
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| re: Is it Les Mis or Les Miz? And has it changed over time? | |
| Posted by: NewtonUK 01:20 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Is it Les Mis or Les Miz? And has it changed over time? - Chromolume 01:10 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
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| You are correct C'Lume. But Les Mis started out spelled this way, because an anglo person doing an abbreviation assumed we all knew that the S was pronounced Z. Then it was made more user friendly as Miz - but both are still used interchangeabley! | |
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| PS -Mis v Miz | |
| Posted by: NewtonUK 01:29 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Is it Les Mis or Les Miz? And has it changed over time? - NewtonUK 01:20 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
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| The website for Les Miserables worldwide is lesmis.com When the show played Paris, an article in the French Marie-Claire magazine calls the show Les Miz. |
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| re: Is it Les Mis or Les Miz? And has it changed over time? | |
| Posted by: Chromolume 01:25 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Is it Les Mis or Les Miz? And has it changed over time? - NewtonUK 01:20 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
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| Oh, I know - I was just saying that in proper French, I don't think "mis" (or even "miz") is actually an abbreviation for the word. So I'm not sure it's really right to say that "mis" is "correct" lol. ;-) | |
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