Some fast-food joint (it may be Subway) is now touting "awggious" dressings, or sauce, or whatnot, in its preparations. Not too long ago, I remember reading a menu that offered the option of "extra awggious."
This new word is pronounced to rhyme with "nauseous." Actually, though, it seems they really mean "au jus," a culinary term from French that might be translated as "with pot-liquor."
The French helped us escape British taxation back in the late eighteenth century. We've treated them rather back-handedly since then, perhaps because at the time of the revolution, we were basically Englishmen, and we shared the English disdain of things French. So they helped, but it didn't take us long to take revenge on them for their help.
I don't mean revenge like the French Revolution, which may have had some roots in common with our own revolution, but which we can't claim as something we brought about.
No, I mean the revenge that "awggious" brings to mind...our seemingly willful mispronunciation of most French words that we borrow into American English. I've been trying to think of a French word or phrase we use that gets pronounced in a way that a Frenchman (or Frenchwoman) would recognize.
Chaise longue? Lingerie? Au jus? Déjà vu? Coup de grâce? No way! Of course there are a few: "Cuisine" works out pretty well, and Miss Piggy's "Moi?" sounds like the real thing. But doesn't that just mean we have to work a little harder at it?