this post was submitted on 07 Apr 2024
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French have the term 'macabre', which the English adopted and Anglicized by dropping the final 're' sound but kept the spelling for some reason. "Ma ka bre" became "ma kah b".
The realisation of that -re is highly variable in English. Some speakers convey it as Ø (nothing), some as /ɹə/ or /ə/ (non-rhotic) or /ə˞/ (rhotic).
Every time I've heard someone pronounce the -re sound on a YouTube video, there were several comments stating that you shouldn't pronounce it, so I thought it was the de facto way to say it in American English.
Prescriptively speaking I think that all three (nothing, -re, -er) are legitimate; for reference the word is /ma.kabʁ/ in French, the cluster is clearly illegal in English so the variations can be seen as different "repairing" strategies. (I'd probably render it as /məkɑ:be/ but my non-native pronunciation is strongly biased towards British varieties, specially RP.)
Note YT comments are often a bit silly with prescriptions. Like trying to correct Steejo (a Scottish YouTuber) for, well, speaking Scottish English.