American woman's wildly inaccurate pronunciation of the word 'gnocchi' leaves the internet BAFFLED: 'Sounds nothing like it!'

It's an incredibly popular Italian dish - but even the most cultured food fans may struggle to recognize one woman's baffling pronunciation of it.

That woman, named Lani Sanchez, has inadvertently found herself at the center of a furious cultural debate online after she shared a recipe video for her favorite new dish, lemon chicken with gnocchi. 

But it was not the meal itself that sparked a viral response, rather the very unique way in which Lani pronounced its key ingredient, gnocchi.

Within minutes of the video going live on TikTok, it had been flooded with comments from viewers brutally mocking Lani for pronouncing gnocchi 'yonkies', with dozens of people pointing out and poking fun at her slip-up. 

'This is a creamy lemon chicken with gnocchis,' Lani began her video.

'It's so good and it's so easy to make,' she says enthusiastically, mixing together heavy cream, chicken broth and lemon juice with a cooked chicken breast and gnocchi.'

While no one took issues with the dish itself, it caused a debate over  how far away she was from the correct pronunciation. 

'Yonkeez has me dying,' one person commented on TikTok, as another chimed in: 'I was so confused on what yonkeez were until I saw the gnocchi bag.'

A third voiced their delight over Lani's unique take on the word, saying: 'I will never pronounce gnocchi any other way except yonkeez. Obsessed.'

'The first time you said yonkees I thought it was like a certain mushroom or something... NOT GNOCCHI,' another joked. 

Meanwhile on X, formerly known as Twitter, the responses were just as scathing, with one person writing: 'Imagine the word gnocchi. imagine how one might say gnocchi.

'Imagine how one might pronounce gnocchi badly. Then listen.'

'I hate to be that guy, but her pronunciation isn't that far off. "Gn" in Italian has almost a "ny" sound, with the n being very subtle,' one user responded to the video.

'Imagine a ny-aww-key. (Italian American here who has been making gnocchi from scratch since I was a little bambino.)' they added.

'Except she's completely dropping the "n" from the beginning, and adding an unnecessary "s" to the end of a word that is already plural,' another user hit back.

The user continued: 'There also wouldn't be anything close to an "aw" sound in the middle. (Italian American dual citizen that's lived and worked in both counties.'

'I was expecting ghee-noh-ki and… she was very close to the correct pronunciation,' another wrote.

'Feels like I bit the bait watching this clip,' they added.

'Dude, she said Yonkeys, sounds nothing like Nyockey,' a gnocchi lover argued. 

'She definitely didn’t say it wrong enough for all this,' another agreed. 

'I was going to say my grandma always said it as “Yonkies”. I was told that was the southern way of saying it,' someone else shared. 

Offers references another recent viral mispronunciation, from a man who mispronounced tzatziki "tz-i-tz-i.'  

'Yeah, tzatziki guy is a hundred times worse,' someone declared. 

Despite the uproar over her pronunciation of the word, Lani appears to have taken the jokes in her stride - responding to several of the more entertaining comments on her TikTok to poke fun at herself. 

'Literally so funny,' she responded to one person who poked fun at her pronunciation, before admitting in another follow-up comment that she learned the pronunciation from her mother who 'has been saying it like that her whole life'.