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Comment by amyjess | Hacker News Reader

> In America, the reverse is true. Most French words are butchered

And inconsistently so!

I've had jury duty several times, and nobody can agree on how to pronounce voir dire. Some courts say "vwahr deer" which is a decent approximation of the French pronunciation, and others say "vore dyer". And while I haven't heard it myself, I wouldn't be surprised if some people pronounce voir as "voyeur".

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French person here, I have no idea what "voir dire" means. It's literally "see say".

Voir dire has a technical meaning among lawyers in the English-speaking countries.

It's Anglo-Norman[0], and means "to tell the truth" ("voir" being cognates with modern French "vrai", not "voir")

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Norman_language

It's a court procedure where you ask questions to an expert witness to verify they know what they're talking about

Interesting that you mention that use. I've spent thousands of hours in court and never heard the term applied to expert witnesses, perhaps because their background is often stipulated.

The use the public would be most familiar with is the interrogation of the jury pool, by both parties, to make sure they are suitable (e.g. suitably biased) jurors before trial:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voir_dire

Did the various pronunciations cause any problems? If I’m honest, it doesn’t sound like a big deal to me.

vwaar deer is close enough but the prononciation is condensed so the r and double e are not strong. No emphasis whatsoever

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