How correctly - "Lewis" or "Levais"? Levi's - transcription

Today, jeans are not an item of luxury, but casual clothing. However, only 25 years ago they were a real rarity, accessible only to selected citizens of the USSR. In the years of total deficit, the lucky owners of this wardrobe product wore them up to the holes, and the brand names were uttered with trembling.

Despite all respect for foreign firms that produce jeans, mistakes were made in the title of some of them. So, for example, it happened with the famous Levi's brand, the name of which was pronounced in different ways. What are they and how correctly read: "Lewis" or "Levais"? Let's find out about this, and at the same time find out the history of the appearance of the brand itself.

The legendary creator of Levi's jeans

Before you consider how correctly spelled the name of the most famous denim brand, it is worthwhile to find out how this type of clothing was invented.

Pants called "jeans" (in which at the given moment a good half of readers of the article are dressed) were invented in the XIX century. Bavarian Jew named Löb Strauß (Loeb Strauss).

When the boy was eighteen, he moved with his mother and sisters from Europe to the United States. By that time, his two older brothers had been selling garments in New York for several years.

Young Loeb soon joined the family business. And to make it easier to adapt to the new country, he changed his name and surname to similar American analogues, thus becoming Levi Strauss (also there are translations of Levi Strauss, Levi Strauss).

A year after his arrival in the US, the young man began to earn well, traveling around the country as a traveling salesman. Particularly contributed to its success the beginning of the gold rush.

Once, when he was delivering cloth to his brothers in San Francisco, Levi was lucky. Even while traveling on a ship, his companions, traveling to the mines, bought almost all the goods from Ostrich. The only thing left by the trader is useless canvas. In order not to spend money, and most importantly - precious time to travel for a new product, the young man decided to take a chance. He came up with a model of durable trousers for miners and ordered the tailor to sew them from the remainder of his canvas.

The new invention of Ostrich was liked by all gold seekers - pants were immediately sold out. To sew new ones, Levi had to buy up all the sails on more than 700 ships in the local harbor. On the proceeds, the young entrepreneur opened his own haberdashery store, naming it in honor of himself - Levi Strauss & Co.

The origin of the word "denim"

Trade heavy-duty trousers for prospectors brought a good income to Levi Strauss. Moreover, he patented every innovation, and it helped him to remain a monopolist in this field.

Over time, he decided to replace the cloth. Instead of a rigid canvas, a strong natural cloth called "twill" was used, which was brought from the French town of Nîmes. His special blue color fell in love with Ostrich's clients. Soon the whole fabric for jeans began to be called in honor of this canvas - Serge de Nime (twill from Nima) or abbreviated "denim". By the way, this name has survived to this day.

The invention of rivets on the pockets of jeans

With the light hand of Levi, jeans became very popular clothes, and soon many other companies began to produce such pants. To remain a leader in this field, Straus had to constantly improve his invention and patent ideas.

Once a tailor from Nevada Jacob Davis sent a letter to the head of Levi Strauss & Co. In it, he told about his innovation - the strengthening of pockets with rivets. Ostrich liked the idea, and together with the tailor he patented it. This innovation allowed Levi several times to increase his profits and make his company a leader.

Famous model Levi's 501

After almost twenty years of successful work in the field of tailoring jeans and jackets to them, Straus decided that it was time to streamline the product lineup. For this he began to number each new trouser style. However, accurately not leading up to this account of models, Levy decided to start counting from 501 numbers. For this reason Levi's 501 jeans became the first official model of Levi Strauss & Co. By the way, they are still very popular all over the world.

Levi's jeans today

Loeb Strauss lived 72 years and died at the very beginning of the 20th century. Having no children of his own, he bequeathed his super-successful venture to the children of his brothers and sisters, who still manage Levi Strauss & Co..

Despite the existence today of many other companies specializing in the production of jeans, Levi's continues to be one of the leaders in this field.

It is fair to say that the descendants of Levi for more than a hundred years of ownership of the company did not introduce anything particularly new, successfully exploiting the achievements of their brilliant ancestor. At the same time they managed to keep the company Levi Strauss & Co even in the conditions of the 2008 crisis, which is also worthy of respect.

How to correctly write the name of this brand and why

After reviewing the history of Levi's brand and its creator, it's time to find out how this word is spelled correctly and why.

So, although the name of the company is Levi Strauss & Co, the jeans they produce are named Levi's. This word is absolutely always written with an apostrophe and never Levis. Since in this case this sign signals that the proper Levi (Levi) noun is in a possessive form, which in English is indicated by the addition of the ending 's to it. So word for word combination Levi's jeans translates as "jeans of Levis".

"Levis" or "Leviza" - that's the question!

Having dealt with the correct spelling of the trousers, you should finally learn about the pronunciation. How correctly - "Lewis" or "Levais"?

As already mentioned above, the brand name was formed on behalf of its creator - Leba Strauss, more precisely from his American counterpart Levi. This noun in the Russian language also has an analogue - Levi. Proceeding from this, the question of how to pronounce "Lewis" or "Levais" - the name of the world brand, it would be worth replying that "Lewis".

However, Levi in English sounds like "Levy", and therefore, the name of the brand, according to the rules of English, will be "Levais", not "Lewis". And according to the rules for translating names from foreign languages into Russian, the original sound should be preserved.

How this word is transcribed

Having considered how correctly - "Lewis" or "Levais", and why this is so, it is worth paying attention to the transcription of the noun. After all, as is known, the British and American versions of the English language differ slightly between themselves.

The British have Levi's word transcription - [li: vaɪz]. Therefore, it turns out that, from their point of view, the name of the brand of jeans - none of the above options. So, in the inhabitants of Misty Albion, the brainchild of Loeb Strauss is called "Lives", not "Lewis" or "Levais".

As it was correctly noted in the previous paragraph, the brand name should be pronounced in the same way as it is done in its homeland. And for Strauss jeans, it's the US, not the UK. Therefore, you need to focus on the American transcription of this word. ]. And it looks like this: [ levəs ].

Therefore, judging by the transcription, the question of how correctly - "Levis" or "Levais" - is pronounced the brand name, the correct answer is the second option.

Despite the confusion in the pronunciation of the Levi's brand name in Russian, jeans products and footwear of this company as a few decades ago, and today, remain beloved in the expanses of the former Soviet Union. And for most citizens it is of no fundamental importance how to pronounce their name. As William Shakespeare said: "What does the name mean?" Rosa smells like a rose, even call her a rose, though not ". Similarly, with jeans - quality things will always be bought, regardless of their name.