The troublesome Nathan Beaulieu

People, people, it’s spelled Beaulieu. B-E-A-U-L-I-E-U.

Remember it this way: Beau + lieu = Beaulieu

Both these words are familiar to anglophones.

beau: noun
1. a frequent and attentive male companion.
2.a male escort for a girl or woman.
3.a dandy; fop.

lieu: noun
1.place; stead.
2. (Idiom) in lieu of, in place of; instead of: He gave us an IOU in lieu of cash.

Also, if all else fails, we can always fire up the Google machine.


As far as pronunciation, try this.

Beau pronounced as ‘Bo’ in “Bo and Luke Duke! Dem’ Duke boys!!! Roscoe!!!!”
+
L
+
ieu pronounced as the first part of ‘yearn’, like when Kramer asked George Costanza: “Do you ever yearn?”


So we have:

Bo + L + Yea(rn) = Beaulieu

It’s common for anglos to mispronounce the ‘ieu’ or ‘ieux’ as ‘you’, so we end up with Clod Lemiooooo… It should be pronounced as the ‘u’ in Charles Montgomery Burns.