How to pronounce "tableaux"?

Question

How do you pronounce Young tableaux? Does it sound just like its singular form?

Answer 1

It depends on whether you’re pronouncing it in French or in English. In French tableau and tableaux are pronounced the same; in English tableaux is pronounced as if it were spelled tableaus, with a /z/ at the end. In fact, the plural can be spelled either tableaux or tableaus in English.

Added: The only pronunciation of the plural given by Merriam-Webster Online is what could informally be written \TAB-loze. The American Heritage Dictionary, 4th ed. offers tăb"lōz', tæ-blōz" (where I’ve used " and ', respectively, for their bold and light symbols for primary and secondary stress). The Random House Dictionary (via Dictionary.com) offers /tæˈbloʊz, ˈtæbloʊz/, the same two pronunciations in the opposite order, and has a sound file for the first one. The OED and the Collins English Dictionary $-$ Complete and Unabridged, which are the two British dictionaries readily available to me, offer both the /-z/ pronunciation and the pronunciation identical to the singular.

It appears, therefore, that in British usage the plural may (but need not) be pronounced identically to the singular; I have never heard this pronunciation in the U.S., however.

Answer 2

According to Wikipedia, tableaux is the British version of the plural, and gives tableaus as the US English version. Therefore, I would go with 'ta-blows'.