David Weber's surname

[The Wanderer]

A question for those of you who may have been in a position to hear it spoken by
someone who would be in a position to know:

What is the correct pronunciation of David Weber's surname?

Specifically, is the first syllable pronounced with a short E (like that in
"web", so that the name as a whole is pronounced the same as that of e.g. Andrew
Lloyd Webber, despite having one fewer B), or with a long one (like that in
"we"?)

My own instincts say that it should be the latter, but everyone else I remember
having ever heard try to pronounce it has gone with the former.

--
The Wanderer

Warning: Simply because I argue an issue does not mean I agree with any
side of it.

Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny.

[Michael Stemper]

In article <u8GdnajjXslZjLzN...@giganews.com>, The Wanderer <wand...@fastmail.fm> writes:
>A question for those of you who may have been in a position to hear it spoken by
>someone who would be in a position to know:
>
>What is the correct pronunciation of David Weber's surname?
>
>Specifically, is the first syllable pronounced with a short E (like that in
>"web", so that the name as a whole is pronounced the same as that of e.g. Andrew
>Lloyd Webber, despite having one fewer B), or with a long one (like that in
>"we"?)
>
>My own instincts say that it should be the latter, but everyone else I remember
>having ever heard try to pronounce it has gone with the former.

I can't address him in particular, but every American I've ever met who
had "Weber" for a surname pronounced it with a short "e". (Germans, of
course, pronounce it "vay ber".)

His brother used to post here. Maybe he's still lurking and can give
an authoritative answer. I used to be able to summon lurkers from the
vasty depths.

--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
Life's too important to take seriously.

[Robert Carnegie]

On Tuesday, August 7, 2012 2:01:56 PM UTC+1, The Wanderer wrote:
> A question for those of you who may have been in a position to hear it
> spoken by someone who would be in a position to know: What is the correct
> pronunciation of David Weber's surname? Specifically, is the first
> syllable pronounced with a short E (like that in "web", so that the name
> as a whole is pronounced the same as that of e.g. Andrew Lloyd Webber,
> despite having one fewer B), or with a long one (like that in "we"?)

Not as in "wabe", the place where slithy toves gyre and gimble?
It rhymes with "outgrabe". Dredging up old German lessons, I'd have
said "V'Eh-burr". As for being in a position to know, who is he?

[Brian M. Scott]

On Tue, 7 Aug 2012 07:00:23 -0700 (PDT), Robert Carnegie
<rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote in
<news:9b1db8a3-617a-4e3a...@googlegroups.com>
in rec.arts.sf.written:

> On Tuesday, August 7, 2012 2:01:56 PM UTC+1, The Wanderer wrote:

>> A question for those of you who may have been in a
>> position to hear it spoken by someone who would be in a
>> position to know: What is the correct pronunciation of
>> David Weber's surname? Specifically, is the first
>> syllable pronounced with a short E (like that in "web",
>> so that the name as a whole is pronounced the same as
>> that of e.g. Andrew Lloyd Webber, despite having one
>> fewer B), or with a long one (like that in "we"?)

> Not as in "wabe", the place where slithy toves gyre and
> gimble?

No. I'd be utterly astonished if it weren't pronounced
exactly like <Webber>; I've never met an American or English
<Weber> who pronounced it in any other way.

> It rhymes with "outgrabe". Dredging up old German
> lessons, I'd have said "V'Eh-burr". As for being in a
> position to know, who is he?

One of the most prolific, popular, and successful active
American writers of sf.

Brian

[The Wanderer]

That was the third option, vowel-wise - but I haven't heard it suggested in this
context before, so I didn't bring it up in order to not complicate the issue
unnecessarily.

> As for being in a position to know, who is he?

Sci-fi author, with some fantasy as well, published by Baen. His most famous
work (though not necessarily his best) is the Honor Harrington series.

I didn't identify him more clearly in the original post because A: I expected
that most readers of the newsgroup would probably know already, and B: anyone
who doesn't know who he is obviously won't have (or be aware of having) been in
a position to hear his name spoken by someone who's in a position to know the
correct pronunciation, and so the question wasn't directed at such people
anyway.

(Plus it just didn't occur to me.)

[GaryS]

On Tue, 07 Aug 2012 09:01:56 -0400, The Wanderer
<wand...@fastmail.fm> wrote:

>A question for those of you who may have been in a position to hear it spoken by
>someone who would be in a position to know:
>
>What is the correct pronunciation of David Weber's surname?
>
>Specifically, is the first syllable pronounced with a short E (like that in
>"web", so that the name as a whole is pronounced the same as that of e.g. Andrew
>Lloyd Webber, despite having one fewer B), or with a long one (like that in
>"we"?)
>
>My own instincts say that it should be the latter, but everyone else I remember
>having ever heard try to pronounce it has gone with the former.

I think of it as "we"-ber because I grew up in a city with gazillions
of Webers and that's what we called them. Imagine my surprise to
discover that only 50 km away they were called Webbers.

[Robert Carnegie]

On Tuesday, August 7, 2012 3:34:27 PM UTC+1, GaryS wrote:
> I think of it as "we"-ber because I grew up in a city with gazillions
> of Webers and that's what we called them. Imagine my surprise to discover
> that only 50 km away they were called Webbers.

Was this in the place in the neighbourhood of the city of Oz, where the
people pick a fight with strangers and if you knock them down, they
immediately rock back upright again?

Or was that something else? I know that the country of the china people
wasn't a problem, except that, as a moral principle, breakages must be
paid for. But there was another land in one of the Oz books where these
people were physically annoying with an attitude sadly matching. Perhaps
it was the Land of the Unicyclists?

[James Nicoll]

In article <9b1db8a3-617a-4e3a...@googlegroups.com>,

Weber is a very, very common name amongst Mennonites up here and they
pronounce it weeber. For that matter it's my ex-sister-in-law's surname and
despite being a Mennonite she is not one of the local Webers*; she pronounces
it weeber as well.

(But then my neighbors changed how they pronounced their surname when they
moved to Canada; Canadians being a more backward people in the 1950s, they
were happy to point out to the Kochs that their name sounds like a word for
penis, so the pronounciation got changed to Cook. How an incomer says their
name here may be no useful guide at all)

* Somewhere American. South of the Mason-Dixon, I think. Moved up here old
enough to remember wherever it was, young enough to loose any detectable
accent.

--
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
http://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll (For all your "The problem with
defending the English language [...]" T-shirt, cup and tote-bag needs)

[The Wanderer]

On 08/07/2012 11:27 AM, James Nicoll wrote:

> (But then my neighbors changed how they pronounced their surname when they
> moved to Canada; Canadians being a more backward people in the 1950s, they
> were happy to point out to the Kochs that their name sounds like a word for
> penis, so the pronounciation got changed to Cook. How an incomer says their
> name here may be no useful guide at all)

For what it's worth, I always think of "Koch" as being pronounced similarly to
"Coke"...

[David DeLaney]

James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:

>Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
>>Not as in "wabe", the place where slithy toves gyre and gimble?
>>It rhymes with "outgrabe". Dredging up old German lessons, I'd have
>>said "V'Eh-burr". As for being in a position to know, who is he?
>
>Weber is a very, very common name amongst Mennonites up here and they
>pronounce it weeber. For that matter it's my ex-sister-in-law's surname and
>despite being a Mennonite she is not one of the local Webers*; she pronounces
>it weeber as well.

Well, ok, but don't the Mennonites/Amish have German in their background in
a nontrivial amount? Which means inherited vowels are sounded differently
than in Standard Worldwide English USA Pronunciation...

>* Somewhere American. South of the Mason-Dixon, I think. Moved up here old
>enough to remember wherever it was, young enough to loose any detectable
>accent.

"South of the Mason-Dixon Line" includes Maryland, which is right near
Pennsylvania, so that might not be as separated as you're thinking.

Dave
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.

[Don Bruder]

In article <a9mdnbIrAKhFq7zN...@giganews.com>,

The Wanderer <wand...@fastmail.fm> wrote:

> On 08/07/2012 11:27 AM, James Nicoll wrote:
>
> > (But then my neighbors changed how they pronounced their surname when they
> > moved to Canada; Canadians being a more backward people in the 1950s, they
> > were happy to point out to the Kochs that their name sounds like a word for
> > penis, so the pronounciation got changed to Cook. How an incomer says their
> > name here may be no useful guide at all)
>
> For what it's worth, I always think of "Koch" as being pronounced similarly to
> "Coke"...

As a data point, anytime I heard the talking heads speaking of him,
Mayor Ed Koch's name was always pronounced with the soft ch - Like at
the end of "catch", versus the hard ch of "loch". In fact, probably the
best way to describe the pronunciation would be to say that they said
"catch" but used the vowel sound from "loch" in place of the "a".

Right? Wrong? Idunno, but it's what I observed.

(Of course, there's a surname in my family that mutated when an ancestor
bearing it hit Ellis Island - "Genoud" got mutated into the phonetic
spelling "Shinew" - No significant change in pronunciation, but
obviously, the spelling got completely remodeled. Gave my mother fits
when she was trying to track down that ancestor for the family tree.)

--
Email shown is deceased. If you would like to contact me by email, please
post something that makes it obvious in this or another group you see me
posting in with a "how to contact you" address, and I'll get back to you.

[James Nicoll]

In article <slrnk22gg...@gatekeeper.vic.com>,

David DeLaney <d...@vic.com> wrote:
>James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>>Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
>>>Not as in "wabe", the place where slithy toves gyre and gimble?
>>>It rhymes with "outgrabe". Dredging up old German lessons, I'd have
>>>said "V'Eh-burr". As for being in a position to know, who is he?
>>
>>Weber is a very, very common name amongst Mennonites up here and they
>>pronounce it weeber. For that matter it's my ex-sister-in-law's surname and
>>despite being a Mennonite she is not one of the local Webers*; she pronounces
>>it weeber as well.
>
>Well, ok, but don't the Mennonites/Amish have German in their background in
>a nontrivial amount?

To the point when my school chums at Waterloo Oxford DSS wanted to portray
themselves as old people they put on thick German accents, so many old people
having them it seemed natural...

>Which means inherited vowels are sounded differently
>than in Standard Worldwide English USA Pronunciation...

I assumed Mike and David Weber are crypto-Mennonites and the entire
Honor Harrington series is an opaque metaphor for the struggles
between Jacob Ammon and his followers and the other Anabaptists circa
1798, so course they'd pronounce Weber the way locals do.

>>* Somewhere American. South of the Mason-Dixon, I think. Moved up here old
>>enough to remember wherever it was, young enough to loose any detectable
>>accent.
>
>"South of the Mason-Dixon Line" includes Maryland, which is right near
>Pennsylvania, so that might not be as separated as you're thinking.

Could be, although I have a dim memory she might have been from a Carolina.

[Wayne Throop]

:: "South of the Mason-Dixon Line" includes Maryland, which is right

:: near Pennsylvania, so that might not be as separated as you're thinking.

: jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll)
: Could be, although I have a dim memory she might have been from a Carolina.

There are both Amish and Mennonite communities in North Carolina.
(Ah. I google only one surviving church district of Amish, but
two Mennonite districts, in Charlotte and Asheville.)

[Kevrob]

On Aug 7, 10:46 am, Robert Carnegie <rja.carne...@excite.com> wrote:
> On Tuesday, August 7, 2012 3:34:27 PM UTC+1, GaryS wrote:
> > I think of it as "we"-ber because I grew up in a city with gazillions
> > of Webers and that's what we called them. Imagine my surprise to discover
> > that only 50 km away they were called Webbers.
>
> Was this in the place in the neighbourhood of the city of Oz, where the
> people pick a fight with strangers and if you knock them down, they
> immediately rock back upright again?
>

Webers wobble, but they don't fall down?

Data point; Utah's Weber State University is pronounced "Wee-bur":

"..like Weber County and the Weber River, the school was named after
John Henry Weber, an early fur trader." (saith the Wiki)

Kevin

[Quadibloc]

On Aug 7, 11:01 am, jdnic...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:

> I assumed Mike and David Weber are crypto-Mennonites and the entire
> Honor Harrington series is an opaque metaphor for the struggles
> between Jacob Ammon and his followers and the other Anabaptists circa
> 1798, so course they'd pronounce Weber the way locals do.

And here everyone else thought it was an opaque metaphor for the naval
career of Horatio Nelson by way of Horatio Hornblower, which shows how
wrong we all can be.

John Savard

[Howard Brazee]

On Tue, 7 Aug 2012 10:25:32 -0700 (PDT), Kevrob <kev...@my-deja.com>
wrote:

>Data point; Utah's Weber State University is pronounced "Wee-bur":

Which is why I assumed that pronunciation for his name. But names
are funny, anybody can choose a pronunciation for his name that is
different from what we would expect. Often it is done to make a name
sound less foreign.

Joe Theismann changed his name pronunciation to rhyme with Heisman,
when he was a senior in college.

--
"In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found,
than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace
to the legislature, and not to the executive department."

- James Madison

[Wayne Throop]

: Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net>
: But names are funny, anybody can choose a pronunciation for his name

: that is different from what we would expect. Often it is done to make
: a name sound less foreign.

Or just to have fewer hassles. I have to be very emphatic about
how to pronounce "Throop", or folks at the very least pronounce the
"th" as in "thorn" instead of as in "thompson" or "thames"
or "thalheimers". In addition to pronouncint it "thorpe"
or "thrope" or other bizarre oddities.

Now, some branches of the Throop family have wimped out and
adopted th-as-in-thorn in their name. Pfft. Wimps.

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

On 8/7/12 2:54 PM, Wayne Throop wrote:
> : Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net>
> : But names are funny, anybody can choose a pronunciation for his name
> : that is different from what we would expect. Often it is done to make
> : a name sound less foreign.
>
> Or just to have fewer hassles. I have to be very emphatic about
> how to pronounce "Throop", or folks at the very least pronounce the
> "th" as in "thorn" instead of as in "thompson" or "thames"
> or "thalheimers". In addition to pronouncint it "thorpe"
> or "thrope" or other bizarre oddities.

So it's pronounced "Troop", as in military?


--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Website: http://www.grandcentralarena.com Blog:
http://seawasp.livejournal.com

[Bill Snyder]

On Tue, 07 Aug 2012 15:08:33 -0400, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
<sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:

>On 8/7/12 2:54 PM, Wayne Throop wrote:
>> : Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net>
>> : But names are funny, anybody can choose a pronunciation for his name
>> : that is different from what we would expect. Often it is done to make
>> : a name sound less foreign.
>>
>> Or just to have fewer hassles. I have to be very emphatic about
>> how to pronounce "Throop", or folks at the very least pronounce the
>> "th" as in "thorn" instead of as in "thompson" or "thames"
>> or "thalheimers". In addition to pronouncint it "thorpe"
>> or "thrope" or other bizarre oddities.
>
> So it's pronounced "Troop", as in military?

His interest in SF making him one of the Starship Throopers?


--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank]

[James Nicoll]

In article <0go22894dtphisk5n...@4ax.com>,

Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> wrote:
>On Tue, 7 Aug 2012 10:25:32 -0700 (PDT), Kevrob <kev...@my-deja.com>
>wrote:
>
>>Data point; Utah's Weber State University is pronounced "Wee-bur":
>
>Which is why I assumed that pronunciation for his name. But names
>are funny, anybody can choose a pronunciation for his name that is
>different from what we would expect.

I pronounce Nicoll as with a short i and a short o; sometimes I've had
it pronounced with a long o, on the assumption, I think, it is French.
In theory there are people who pronounce it with a long i but I've
never encountered that.

I did see a Nicoll on some science show who pronounced it in such an
odd way I didn't process it as "Nicoll" until I saw it in print on
the screen. I don't recall how she pronounced it, though, except
SHE DID IT WRONG.

[Wayne Throop]

:: Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net>

:: But names are funny, anybody can choose a pronunciation for his name
:: that is different from what we would expect. Often it is done to make
:: a name sound less foreign.

: thr...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop)
: Or just to have fewer hassles. I have to be very emphatic about

: how to pronounce "Throop", or folks at the very least pronounce the
: "th" as in "thorn" instead of as in "thompson" or "thames" or
: "thalheimers". In addition to pronouncint it "thorpe" or "thrope" or
: other bizarre oddities.

My method of adding emphasis while speaking to form-filler-outers
is to spell my name after I pronounce it, as in "what's your name?",
"Throop, Tee **AITCH** are oh oh pea". That *usually* works. Usually.
Not always. And a significant proportion of back-and-forth clarification
ending it, "oh, you mean like "troop"!" with a 50-50 chance of them
putting "Troop" on the form. The good ones are the ones who say "oh,
the aitch is silent!".

I suspect Mayor Koch's name pronunciation was more to go along with
common ch-as-soft-k-sound, since that seems like the way a naive
USian would pronounce it. To a naiveUSian, if you meant "k", you'd
have spelt it "k", not "ch".

: Now, some branches of the Throop family have wimped out and adopted

: th-as-in-thorn in their name. Pfft. Wimps.

Oh, and the other way to wimp out was taken by some;
to change the spelling to "Troop". Pfft. Makes me sick.
Und not in der goot vay.

It wonders me if some Koch-es respelt their name Kok?
Except that'd probably get them "coke". So, probably Kock.

"I'd like to teach the world to speak in perfect synchrony..."

[Greg Goss]

The Wanderer <wand...@fastmail.fm> wrote:

>What is the correct pronunciation of David Weber's surname?
>
>Specifically, is the first syllable pronounced with a short E (like that in
>"web", so that the name as a whole is pronounced the same as that of e.g. Andrew
>Lloyd Webber, despite having one fewer B), or with a long one (like that in
>"we"?)
>
>My own instincts say that it should be the latter, but everyone else I remember
>having ever heard try to pronounce it has gone with the former.

Once I started arguing English structure with people on the web, I
discovered that the "double the consonant to prevent long vowel" rule
only seems to have been taught in Canada. Thus you get "buses" and
such where the rule is ignored, to the point where you can no longer
tell what the creator of the word intended, and the need for
out-of-channel discussions like this one to determine what the word
actually is.
--
I used to own a mind like a steel trap.
Perhaps if I'd specified a brass one, it
wouldn't have rusted like this.

[Greg Goss]

jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:

>(But then my neighbors changed how they pronounced their surname when they
>moved to Canada; Canadians being a more backward people in the 1950s, they
>were happy to point out to the Kochs that their name sounds like a word for
>penis, so the pronounciation got changed to Cook. How an incomer says their
>name here may be no useful guide at all)

The Koch brothers in the States are famous. Depending on where you
know them from, they're either the enemy of all that is good and
proper (politics), or the ongoing sponsor of the best science show on
television (Nova).

They use "coke".

[Kurt Busiek]

On 2012-08-07 19:59:25 +0000, Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> said:

> jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
>
>> (But then my neighbors changed how they pronounced their surname when they
>> moved to Canada; Canadians being a more backward people in the 1950s, they
>> were happy to point out to the Kochs that their name sounds like a word for
>> penis, so the pronounciation got changed to Cook. How an incomer says their
>> name here may be no useful guide at all)
>
> The Koch brothers in the States are famous. Depending on where you
> know them from, they're either the enemy of all that is good and
> proper (politics), or the ongoing sponsor of the best science show on
> television (Nova).

Or both!

> They use "coke".

That explains a lot.

kdb
--
Visit http://www.busiek.com -- for all your Busiek needs!

[Kip Williams]

Wayne Throop wrote:

> It wonders me if some Koch-es respelt their name Kok?
> Except that'd probably get them "coke". So, probably Kock.

Now we're back to the "New Koch" fiasco.


Kip W
rasfw

[Greg Goss]

jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:

>I pronounce Nicoll as with a short i and a short o; sometimes I've had
>it pronounced with a long o, on the assumption, I think, it is French.

To my mind, any attempt to use a short o in that word would be schwaed
out of existence as "nickle". Do you run into that as a problem?

[Howard Brazee]

On Tue, 07 Aug 2012 18:54:05 GMT, thr...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop)
wrote:

And sometimes to avoid dumb puns and jokes when a name doesn't
translate well.

[Howard Brazee]

On Tue, 07 Aug 2012 19:09:50 GMT, thr...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop)
wrote:

>: Now, some branches of the Throop family have wimped out and adopted
>: th-as-in-thorn in their name. Pfft. Wimps.
>
>Oh, and the other way to wimp out was taken by some;
>to change the spelling to "Troop". Pfft. Makes me sick.
>Und not in der goot vay.
>
>It wonders me if some Koch-es respelt their name Kok?
>Except that'd probably get them "coke". So, probably Kock.

They don't want "cock", either in spelling or in pronunciation.

[Howard Brazee]

On Tue, 07 Aug 2012 13:57:09 -0600, Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:

>Once I started arguing English structure with people on the web, I
>discovered that the "double the consonant to prevent long vowel" rule
>only seems to have been taught in Canada.

That's what I learned, in California in the 1950s.

[Wayne Throop]

:: So it's pronounced "Troop", as in military?

Yep.

: His interest in SF making him one of the Starship Throopers?

Or a Galaxy Ranger.


"He's not just a Galaxy Ranger, he's a Supertrooper!"

--- Head of BETA, re Shane "talk-like-Clint-Eastwood" Gusman,
who, in addition to having the GR sesies 5 implant,
had been treated (either prenatally or in infancy,
I'm a bit fuzzy which) with the Supertrooper Juice

(the supertrooper juice acts much like the X gene
as in X-men, giving each recipient a mostly-unique
superpower (in addition to superhuman reflexes),
which Shane can amp up with his implant...
the other GRs have only the implant, to enhnce
other non-supertrooper abilities)

"It's all in the reflexes."

--- Jack Burton

Into these worlds of unknown danger they ride
They're the Galaxy Rangers, heroes in the sky...

--- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMpsAmWbSJg
( the series was a mixture of appallingly campy,
"science" ranging from ridiculous to so far off
it isn't even wrong, and cliches... along with
actually semi-interesting bits like the extensive
use of AIs, BETA mountain, misc mutli-episode
story arcs... so they actually made it
sort of work... )

[Kip Williams]

Howard Brazee wrote:
> On Tue, 07 Aug 2012 18:54:05 GMT, thr...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop)
> wrote:
>
>> Now, some branches of the Throop family have wimped out and
>> adopted th-as-in-thorn in their name. Pfft. Wimps.
>
> And sometimes to avoid dumb puns and jokes when a name doesn't
> translate well.

A lad named Geoff Strewp* was in Scouts with me. This was at a time when
a sitcom called "F-Troop" was on TV. I was probably one of the brilliant
wits who sang his name to the tune of the show's theme, and I am not
proud of it.

* One of both names misspelt for reasons.


Kip W
rasfw

[Rod Speed]

Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> wrote

> Kevrob <kev...@my-deja.com> wrote

>> Data point; Utah's Weber State University is pronounced "Wee-bur":

> Which is why I assumed that pronunciation for his name.
> But names are funny, anybody can choose a pronunciation
> for his name that is different from what we would expect.
> Often it is done to make a name sound less foreign.

And sometimes when the obvious pronunciation produces what
they decide is a tad down market like those whose name is Parrot.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> writes:

> On Tuesday, August 7, 2012 2:01:56 PM UTC+1, The Wanderer wrote:
>> A question for those of you who may have been in a position to hear it

>> spoken by someone who would be in a position to know: What is the correct

>> pronunciation of David Weber's surname? Specifically, is the first
>> syllable pronounced with a short E (like that in "web", so that the name
>> as a whole is pronounced the same as that of e.g. Andrew Lloyd Webber,
>> despite having one fewer B), or with a long one (like that in "we"?)
>

> Not as in "wabe", the place where slithy toves gyre and gimble?
> It rhymes with "outgrabe". Dredging up old German lessons, I'd have
> said "V'Eh-burr". As for being in a position to know, who is he?

Very commonly, people in America with names of non-English origin (but
not *only* such people) pronouce their names quite differently from how
they're pronounced in the original language. So, Weber looks German, I
know roughly how it would be pronounced in German (as people have
described), but I think it's relatively unlikely that that's how
families in the US pronounce it. But for many names they don't even all
agree, so that's nowhere near definitive; the question has to be (and it
was correctly asked by the OP) how does *David Weber* pronounce his last
name (not "how is it pronounced" in a general sense).

--
David Dyer-Bennet, dd...@dd-b.net; http://dd-b.net/
Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/
Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/
Dragaera: http://dragaera.info

[David DeLaney]

Plus which I didn't think David Weber was capable of being a crypto-ANYTHING.
If he were a Mennonite we'd get pages and pages of enumerating, _by name_,
which particular ancestral Amish left the church, when, and under what
conditions...

Dave "maybe he was a Webelos?" DeLaney

[David DeLaney]

Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:

>On 8/7/12 2:54 PM, Wayne Throop wrote:
>> Or just to have fewer hassles. I have to be very emphatic about
>> how to pronounce "Throop", or folks at the very least pronounce the
>> "th" as in "thorn" instead of as in "thompson" or "thames"
>> or "thalheimers". In addition to pronouncint it "thorpe"
>> or "thrope" or other bizarre oddities.
>
> So it's pronounced "Troop", as in military?

And not Dhroop as in 'those'?

Dave

[David DeLaney]

Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> wrote:

>thr...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop) wrote:
>>It wonders me if some Koch-es respelt their name Kok?
>>Except that'd probably get them "coke". So, probably Kock.
>
>They don't want "cock", either in spelling or in pronunciation.

All the more for the rest of us, as my grandparents said about the lobster.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) writes:

> I pronounce Nicoll as with a short i and a short o; sometimes I've had
> it pronounced with a long o, on the assumption, I think, it is French.
> In theory there are people who pronounce it with a long i but I've
> never encountered that.

Accented where?

> I did see a Nicoll on some science show who pronounced it in such an
> odd way I didn't process it as "Nicoll" until I saw it in print on
> the screen. I don't recall how she pronounced it, though, except
> SHE DID IT WRONG.

So far, my extended family is pretty consistent with our name, saving me
considerable annoyance.

[David DeLaney]

On Tue, 07 Aug 2012 13:57:09 -0600, Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:

>Once I started arguing English structure with people on the web, I
>discovered that the "double the consonant to prevent long vowel" rule
>only seems to have been taught in Canada. Thus you get "buses" and
>such where the rule is ignored,

Well ... in that particular case it's also because "busses" are an entirely
different collective noun.

Dave "xxx ooo" DeLaney

[Howard Brazee]

On Tue, 07 Aug 2012 17:41:36 -0400, Kip Williams <mrk...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>A lad named Geoff Strewp* was in Scouts with me. This was at a time when
>a sitcom called "F-Troop" was on TV. I was probably one of the brilliant
>wits who sang his name to the tune of the show's theme, and I am not
>proud of it.
>
>* One of both names misspelt for reasons.

The end of the Civil War was near
when quite accidentally,
A hero who sneezed abruptly seized
retreat and reversed it to victory.

His medal of honor pleased
and thrilled his proud little family group.
While pinning it on some blood was spilled
and so it was planned he’d command F-Troop.

Where Indian fights are colorful sights & nobody takes a licking
Where pale face and redskin both turn chicken.

When killing and fighting get them down,
they know their morale can't droop.
As long as they all relax in town before they resume
with a bang and a boom
F-Troop.

[Kip Williams]

Howard Brazee wrote:
> On Tue, 07 Aug 2012 17:41:36 -0400, Kip Williams <mrk...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> A lad named Geoff Strewp* was in Scouts with me. This was at a time when
>> a sitcom called "F-Troop" was on TV. I was probably one of the brilliant
>> wits who sang his name to the tune of the show's theme, and I am not
>> proud of it.
>>
>> * One of both names misspelt for reasons.

one OR both...

> The end of the Civil War was near
> when quite accidentally,
> A hero who sneezed abruptly seized
> retreat and reversed it to victory.

I have these lyrics written in on my copy of the music, because the ones
they printed are a different set, for some reason. Fortunately, a
convention friend with a good memory was able to set down the ones they
actually used on the show.

I used the tune a few years back for a political filk called "FOX TROOP."


Kip W
rasfw

[Joe Pfeiffer]

David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> writes:

> Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> writes:
>
>> On Tuesday, August 7, 2012 2:01:56 PM UTC+1, The Wanderer wrote:
>>> A question for those of you who may have been in a position to hear it
>>> spoken by someone who would be in a position to know: What is the correct
>>> pronunciation of David Weber's surname? Specifically, is the first
>>> syllable pronounced with a short E (like that in "web", so that the name
>>> as a whole is pronounced the same as that of e.g. Andrew Lloyd Webber,
>>> despite having one fewer B), or with a long one (like that in "we"?)
>>
>> Not as in "wabe", the place where slithy toves gyre and gimble?
>> It rhymes with "outgrabe". Dredging up old German lessons, I'd have
>> said "V'Eh-burr". As for being in a position to know, who is he?
>
> Very commonly, people in America with names of non-English origin (but
> not *only* such people) pronouce their names quite differently from how
> they're pronounced in the original language. So, Weber looks German, I
> know roughly how it would be pronounced in German (as people have
> described), but I think it's relatively unlikely that that's how
> families in the US pronounce it. But for many names they don't even all
> agree, so that's nowhere near definitive; the question has to be (and it
> was correctly asked by the OP) how does *David Weber* pronounce his last
> name (not "how is it pronounced" in a general sense).

But it's much more fun for me to say there is a well-known political
cartoonist who doesn't know how to spell his own last name (Jules
Feiffer).

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On 2012-08-07 09:14:26 -0400, Michael Stemper said:

> In article <u8GdnajjXslZjLzN...@giganews.com>, The

> Wanderer <wand...@fastmail.fm> writes:
>> A question for those of you who may have been in a position to hear it
>> spoken by
>> someone who would be in a position to know:
>>
>> What is the correct pronunciation of David Weber's surname?
>>
>> Specifically, is the first syllable pronounced with a short E (like that in
>> "web", so that the name as a whole is pronounced the same as that of
>> e.g. Andrew
>> Lloyd Webber, despite having one fewer B), or with a long one (like that in
>> "we"?)
>>

>> My own instincts say that it should be the latter, but everyone else I remember
>> having ever heard try to pronounce it has gone with the former.
>

> I can't address him in particular, but every American I've ever met who
> had "Weber" for a surname pronounced it with a short "e". (Germans, of
> course, pronounce it "vay ber".)
>
> His brother used to post here. Maybe he's still lurking and can give
> an authoritative answer. I used to be able to summon lurkers from the
> vasty depths.

I can give an authoritative answer, because I ASKED David Weber at a
convention in Chicago many years ago.

He pronounces it "webber."




--
Now available on Amazon or B&N: One-Eyed Jack.
Greg Kraft could see ghosts. That didn't mean he could stop them...

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

On Tue, 07 Aug 2012 18:50:19 -0400, d...@gatekeeper.vic.com (David
DeLaney) wrote:

>On Tue, 07 Aug 2012 13:57:09 -0600, Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
>>Once I started arguing English structure with people on the web, I
>>discovered that the "double the consonant to prevent long vowel" rule
>>only seems to have been taught in Canada. Thus you get "buses" and
>>such where the rule is ignored,
>
>Well ... in that particular case it's also because "busses" are an entirely
>different collective noun.

Like *that* ever stopped English before!

Cheers - Jaimie
--
To every complex problem there is a solution which is simple, neat and wrong.
-- HL Mencken

[Wayne Throop]

:: But names are funny, anybody can choose a pronunciation for his name

:: that is different from what we would expect.

: And sometimes when the obvious pronunciation produces what they decide

: is a tad down market like those whose name is Parrot.

"It's pronounced, "boo-KAY"." --- Hyacinth Bucket

[Rod Speed]

Wayne Throop <thr...@sheol.org> wrote

Yeah, that�s what I meant. There are surprisingly few who do
pronounce their surnames the obvious way with names like that.

Never been a problem with Speed for some reason.

[The Wanderer]

Thank you. That's the information I was looking for.

Now I just have to change the reflexive pronunciation in my own mind, which
while not a pleasant task is at least more comfortable than waffling in
uncertainty about which way I should be trying to go with it.

--
The Wanderer

Warning: Simply because I argue an issue does not mean I agree with any
side of it.

Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny.

[The Wanderer]

On 08/07/2012 06:21 PM, David Dyer-Bennet wrote:

> Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> writes:
>
>> On Tuesday, August 7, 2012 2:01:56 PM UTC+1, The Wanderer wrote:
>>
>>> A question for those of you who may have been in a position to hear it
>>> spoken by someone who would be in a position to know: What is the correct
>>> pronunciation of David Weber's surname? Specifically, is the first
>>> syllable pronounced with a short E (like that in "web", so that the name
>>> as a whole is pronounced the same as that of e.g. Andrew Lloyd Webber,
>>> despite having one fewer B), or with a long one (like that in "we"?)
>>
>> Not as in "wabe", the place where slithy toves gyre and gimble? It rhymes
>> with "outgrabe". Dredging up old German lessons, I'd have said
>> "V'Eh-burr". As for being in a position to know, who is he?
>
> Very commonly, people in America with names of non-English origin (but not
> *only* such people) pronouce their names quite differently from how they're
> pronounced in the original language. So, Weber looks German, I know roughly
> how it would be pronounced in German (as people have described), but I think
> it's relatively unlikely that that's how families in the US pronounce it.
> But for many names they don't even all agree, so that's nowhere near
> definitive; the question has to be (and it was correctly asked by the OP) how
> does *David Weber* pronounce his last name (not "how is it pronounced" in a
> general sense).

Quite right - and in hindsight, I think I may not have been as clear about that
(i.e., what question I was asking) as I thought I was.

Apologies to anyone who was misled by my potentially poor phrasing.

[Greg Goss]

Despite my whining about single-consonant rules, that's the
pronunciation I was using in my mind for him. I'd never actually
thought to wonder the question, and would likely never have thought of
the original "Vay-ber" version.

[Brian M. Scott]

On Tue, 07 Aug 2012 13:57:09 -0600, Greg Goss

<go...@gossg.org> wrote in
<news:a8da8r...@mid.individual.net> in
rec.arts.sf.written:

[...]

> Once I started arguing English structure with people on
> the web, I discovered that the "double the consonant to
> prevent long vowel" rule only seems to have been taught
> in Canada.

Nope. It was certainly taught in Amherst, Mass., in the
early 1950s. It's also a general principle that's pretty
easy to infer for anyone who's paying any attention. Like
many of our spelling conventions, it actually goes back to
late Middle English/Early Modern English.

> Thus you get "buses" and such where the rule is ignored,

Largely, I think, because <buses> is from <omnibuses>.
Since the primary stress in <omnibus> is on the first
syllable, the rule would not have applied. (Early on the
plural <omnibi> is found; the OED has examples from 1840 and
1902. It also has a mid-19th century <omnibus's>.)

[...]

Brian

[Michael Stemper]

In article <a8da8r...@mid.individual.net>, Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> writes:

>The Wanderer <wand...@fastmail.fm> wrote:

>>What is the correct pronunciation of David Weber's surname?
>>
>>Specifically, is the first syllable pronounced with a short E (like that in
>>"web", so that the name as a whole is pronounced the same as that of e.g. Andrew
>>Lloyd Webber, despite having one fewer B), or with a long one (like that in
>>"we"?)
>>

>>My own instincts say that it should be the latter, but everyone else I remember
>>having ever heard try to pronounce it has gone with the former.
>

>Once I started arguing English structure with people on the web, I
>discovered that the "double the consonant to prevent long vowel" rule
>only seems to have been taught in Canada.

I learned it in the 1959-1960 school year in a suburb of Chicago. I used
it until the mid-1980s when I started regularly getting "corrected".

--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
Life's too important to take seriously.

[Michael Stemper]

"[...] it's pronounced 'Throatwobbler Mangrove'."
-- Raymond Luxury Yacht

[Kip Williams]

Michael Stemper wrote:
> In article <13443...@sheol.org>, thr...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop) writes:
>
>> :: But names are funny, anybody can choose a pronunciation for his name
>> :: that is different from what we would expect.
>>
>> : And sometimes when the obvious pronunciation produces what they decide
>> : is a tad down market like those whose name is Parrot.
>>
>> "It's pronounced, "boo-KAY"." --- Hyacinth Bucket
>
> "[...] it's pronounced 'Throatwobbler Mangrove'."
> -- Raymond Luxury Yacht

"BigbooTAY, damn it!"


Kip W
rasfw

[Kip Williams]

It's not easy. Even after years of knowing otherwise, I still find that
"Dr. Sooce" rolls out of my mouth instead of "Dr. Zoyce" when naming the
author of _Fox in Socks_.


Kip W
rasfw

[Steve Coltrin]

begin fnord
Kip Williams <mrk...@gmail.com> writes:

> "BigbooTAY, damn it!"

<bang!>

--
Steve Coltrin spco...@omcl.org Google Groups killfiled here
"A group known as the League of Human Dignity helped arrange for Deuel
to be driven to a local livestock scale, where he could be weighed."
- Associated Press

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

On Wed, 08 Aug 2012 08:46:37 -0400, Kip Williams <mrk...@gmail.com>
wrote:

Aw, that's two things I have to reprogram myself to do now!

[Kevrob]

One of Ted Geisel's* cousins used to shop at a store I worked at.
That part of the family pronounced it "Soyce." This was in Milwaukee,
WI, where one would occasionally meet German-surnamed people who
hadn't yet lost the original pronunciation and plenty of folks who
had.

Kevin

(That's guy-sel, not gee-sel, and a "hard" G right?")

[Kip Williams]

Kevrob wrote:
> On Aug 8, 8:46 am, Kip Williams <mrk...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> The Wanderer wrote:
>>> On 08/07/2012 07:38 PM, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
>>
>>>> He pronounces it "webber."
>>
>>> Thank you. That's the information I was looking for.
>>
>>> Now I just have to change the reflexive pronunciation in my own mind, which
>>> while not a pleasant task is at least more comfortable than waffling in
>>> uncertainty about which way I should be trying to go with it.
>>
>> It's not easy. Even after years of knowing otherwise, I still find that
>> "Dr. Sooce" rolls out of my mouth instead of "Dr. Zoyce" when naming the
>> author of _Fox in Socks_.
>

> One of Ted Geisel's* cousins used to shop at a store I worked at.
> That part of the family pronounced it "Soyce." This was in Milwaukee,
> WI, where one would occasionally meet German-surnamed people who
> hadn't yet lost the original pronunciation and plenty of folks who
> had.

I was told it was pronounced as German, and that's how a freestanding
ess was pronounced at the beginning of a word. If Geisel's mom's family
actually pronounces it with a hard ess sound, then I would say it their
way instead of the correct way, because it's their name.

> (That's guy-sel, not gee-sel, and a "hard" G right?")

I assume so, and have heard it that way, but it could be pronounced
'smith' for all I know.


Kip W
rasfw

[Kurt Busiek]

On 2012-08-08 13:52:35 +0000, Jaimie Vandenbergh

<jai...@sometimes.sessile.org> said:

> On Wed, 08 Aug 2012 08:46:37 -0400, Kip Williams <mrk...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> The Wanderer wrote:
>>> On 08/07/2012 07:38 PM, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
>>>
>>>> He pronounces it "webber."
>>>
>>> Thank you. That's the information I was looking for.
>>>
>>> Now I just have to change the reflexive pronunciation in my own mind, which
>>> while not a pleasant task is at least more comfortable than waffling in
>>> uncertainty about which way I should be trying to go with it.
>>
>> It's not easy. Even after years of knowing otherwise, I still find that
>> "Dr. Sooce" rolls out of my mouth instead of "Dr. Zoyce" when naming the
>> author of _Fox in Socks_.
>
> Aw, that's two things I have to reprogram myself to do now!

Not really. The author of FOX IN SOX is indeed pronounced "Doctor
Soose." That's not how Theodore Seuss Geisel pronounced his middle
name, but it is how he pronounced his pseudonym.

He started out pronouncing it "Zoice," but since most people pronounced
it "Soose," and since he liked that it made his pseudonym rhyme with
"Mother Goose," he adopted that pronunciation.

So if you're using his real name, it's "Zoice." If you're using his
most-common pseudonym, it's "Soose."

kdb
--
Visit http://www.busiek.com -- for all your Busiek needs!

[Kip Williams]

Live and learn. My info is probably outdated, from when he was still
struggling with it.


Kip W
rasfw

[David DeLaney]

Kip Williams <mrk...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Michael Stemper wrote:

>> thr...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop) writes:
>>> : And sometimes when the obvious pronunciation produces what they decide
>>> : is a tad down market like those whose name is Parrot.
>>>
>>> "It's pronounced, "boo-KAY"." --- Hyacinth Bucket
>>
>> "[...] it's pronounced 'Throatwobbler Mangrove'."
>> -- Raymond Luxury Yacht
>
>"BigbooTAY, damn it!"

"...Eye-gor."

Dave "Fanshaw" DeLaney

[Will in New Haven]

On Aug 8, 12:28 pm, d...@gatekeeper.vic.com (David DeLaney) wrote:
> Kip Williams <mrk...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >Michael Stemper wrote:

> >> thro...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop) writes:
> >>> : And sometimes when the obvious pronunciation produces what they decide
> >>> : is a tad down market like those whose name is Parrot.
>
> >>>     "It's pronounced, "boo-KAY"."    --- Hyacinth Bucket
>
> >> "[...] it's pronounced 'Throatwobbler Mangrove'."
> >>     -- Raymond Luxury Yacht
>
> >"BigbooTAY, damn it!"
>
> "...Eye-gor."

I have a friend of a friend who is named Igor but pronounces it ee-
hor. It comes very close to making a donkey of him but the "h" sound
is very strong. So it comes very close to making a loose woman of him,
which he wouldn't mind all that much.

--
Will in New Haven

[Joe Pfeiffer]

Teatime, anyone?

[Bill Snyder]

That's MISTER Teh-ah-tim-eh to you, and you'd better not forget
it.


--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank]

[Butch Malahide]

On Aug 7, 6:38 pm, Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>
> I can give an authoritative answer, because I ASKED David Weber at a
> convention in Chicago many years ago.
>
> He pronounces it "webber."

Is it the same for Wally Weber?

[Kip Williams]

For it's work all day
For the sugar in you "tay"
When we work for the CP Railway...


Kip W
rasfw

[Jacey Bedford]

In message <1blihps...@pfeifferfamily.net>, Joe Pfeiffer
<pfei...@cs.nmsu.edu> writes

Mr Tay-ah-tee-may, of course.

Jacey
--
Jacey Bedford

[Jacey Bedford]

In message <a8da8r...@mid.individual.net>, Greg Goss

<go...@gossg.org> writes
>The Wanderer <wand...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
>
>>What is the correct pronunciation of David Weber's surname?
>>
>>Specifically, is the first syllable pronounced with a short E (like that in
>>"web", so that the name as a whole is pronounced the same as that of
>>e.g. Andrew
>>Lloyd Webber, despite having one fewer B), or with a long one (like that in
>>"we"?)
>>
>>My own instincts say that it should be the latter, but everyone else I
>>remember
>>having ever heard try to pronounce it has gone with the former.
>
>Once I started arguing English structure with people on the web, I
>discovered that the "double the consonant to prevent long vowel" rule

>only seems to have been taught in Canada. Thus you get "buses" and
>such where the rule is ignored, to the point where you can no longer
>tell what the creator of the word intended, and the need for
>out-of-channel discussions like this one to determine what the word
>actually is.


Well, in Britain as well. That's why I can't get on with traveler (one
L) when it's the double L that shortens the first E - traveller.

Jacey
--
Jacey Bedford

[Butch Malahide]

On Aug 8, 2:59 pm, Jacey Bedford <lookin...@nospam.invalid> wrote:
>
> Well, in Britain as well. That's why I can't get on with traveler (one
> L) when it's the double L that shortens the first E - traveller.

Britain? Shouldn't that be Brittain?

[Brian M. Scott]

On Wed, 8 Aug 2012 10:41:57 -0700 (PDT), Will in New Haven
<bill....@taylorandfrancis.com> wrote in
<news:c330c65b-69be-4048...@j11g2000vbc.googlegroups.com>
in rec.arts.sf.written:

[...]

> I have a friend of a friend who is named Igor but

> pronounces it ee-hor. It comes very close to making a
> donkey of him but the "h" sound is very strong. [...]

That's the Ukrainian pronunciation.

Brian

[Brian M. Scott]

On Wed, 8 Aug 2012 20:59:51 +0100, Jacey Bedford
<look...@nospam.invalid> wrote in
<news:3alk2n23...@parkhead.demon.co.uk> in
rec.arts.sf.written:

[...]

> That's why I can't get on with traveler (one L) when it's
> the double L that shortens the first E - traveller.

That's a separate issue. The doubling rule only ever
applied to consonants at the end of syllables with primary
stress. The first <e> in <travel(l)er> is automatically
reduced, simply because it *doesn't* bear stress. The
spelling <traveller> should actually indicate a
pronunciation \trǝ-VELL-ǝ(r)\ (cf. <propeller>, <impeller>,
etc.). I generally use the British spelling, but in this
case the U.S. spelling actually makes more sense.

Brian

[Kevrob]

Loan word from the Welsh makes an exception, right?

Kevin

[Sjouke Burry]

Butch Malahide <fred....@gmail.com> wrote in news:4f1443f0-052a-4ffd-
a777-960...@a17g2000yqg.googlegroups.com:

Does your modification add anything to the comprehension of the
concerned sentence?
Or are you flexing your nitpick-muscles?

[Howard Brazee]

On Wed, 08 Aug 2012 00:24:28 -0400, The Wanderer
<wand...@fastmail.fm> wrote:

>> I can give an authoritative answer, because I ASKED David Weber at a
>> convention in Chicago many years ago.
>>
>> He pronounces it "webber."
>

>Thank you. That's the information I was looking for.
>
>Now I just have to change the reflexive pronunciation in my own mind, which
>while not a pleasant task is at least more comfortable than waffling in
>uncertainty about which way I should be trying to go with it.

I've had to do that, with DuQuesne, and with (oddly enough),
MacIntyre. And probably others as well.

--
"In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found,
than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace
to the legislature, and not to the executive department."

- James Madison

[Howard Brazee]

On Wed, 8 Aug 2012 16:43:59 -0700 (PDT), Kevrob <kev...@my-deja.com>

wrote:

>> > Well, in Britain as well. That's why I can't get on with traveler (one
>> > L) when it's the double L that shortens the first E - traveller.
>>
>> Britain? Shouldn't that be Brittain?
>
>Loan word from the Welsh makes an exception, right?

Only from the Welsh? Well, if we excluded all words that came from
elsewhere, what would be left?

[Kay Shapero]

In article <13443...@sheol.org>, thr...@sheol.org says...
>

>
> Or just to have fewer hassles. I have to be very emphatic about
> how to pronounce "Throop", or folks at the very least pronounce the
> "th" as in "thorn" instead of as in "thompson" or "thames"
> or "thalheimers". In addition to pronouncint it "thorpe"
> or "thrope" or other bizarre oddities.
>
> Now, some branches of the Throop family have wimped out and
> adopted th-as-in-thorn in their name. Pfft. Wimps.

Ah, so unless the author didn't know this either, I've been
mispronouncing "Kelvin Throop" wrong all these years. You've got my
sympathies: my usual problem isn't that people can't pronounce my last
name, it's that they can't spell it - and worse, think they can.

--
Kay Shapero
http://www.kayshapero.net
Address munged, to email use kay at the above domain (everything after
the www.)

[Walter Bushell]

In article <slrnk2356...@gatekeeper.vic.com>,
d...@gatekeeper.vic.com (David DeLaney) wrote:

> Dave "maybe he was a Webelos?" DeLaney

It would take you to scout that out.

--
This space unintentionally left blank.

[Howard Brazee]

I thought it was amusing myself.

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

On 8/8/12 9:07 PM, Howard Brazee wrote:
> On Wed, 08 Aug 2012 00:24:28 -0400, The Wanderer
> <wand...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
>
>>> I can give an authoritative answer, because I ASKED David Weber at a
>>> convention in Chicago many years ago.
>>>
>>> He pronounces it "webber."
>>
>> Thank you. That's the information I was looking for.
>>
>> Now I just have to change the reflexive pronunciation in my own mind, which
>> while not a pleasant task is at least more comfortable than waffling in
>> uncertainty about which way I should be trying to go with it.
>
>
> I've had to do that, with DuQuesne, and with (oddly enough),
> MacIntyre. And probably others as well.
>

I've failed to do it with DuQuesne. Oh, I can manage to pronounce it
correctly in public, but in my head I'm still forcibly switching from
"Doo-Kweznee" to "Doo-Kayne".

--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Website: http://www.grandcentralarena.com Blog:
http://seawasp.livejournal.com

[Greg Goss]

Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> wrote:

>On Wed, 8 Aug 2012 16:43:59 -0700 (PDT), Kevrob <kev...@my-deja.com>
>wrote:
>
>>> > Well, in Britain as well. That's why I can't get on with traveler (one
>>> > L) when it's the double L that shortens the first E - traveller.
>>>
>>> Britain? Shouldn't that be Brittain?
>>
>>Loan word from the Welsh makes an exception, right?
>
>Only from the Welsh? Well, if we excluded all words that came from
>elsewhere, what would be left?

I find you guilty of possession of stolen property. We have one James
Nichol as a witness.
--
I used to own a mind like a steel trap.
Perhaps if I'd specified a brass one, it
wouldn't have rusted like this.

[Butch Malahide]

On Aug 8, 7:43 pm, Sjouke Burry <s@b> wrote:
> Butch Malahide <fred.gal...@gmail.com> wrote in news:4f1443f0-052a-4ffd-
> a777-960267124...@a17g2000yqg.googlegroups.com:

>
> > On Aug 8, 2:59 pm, Jacey Bedford <lookin...@nospam.invalid> wrote:
>
> >> Well, in Britain as well. That's why I can't get on with traveler (one
> >> L) when it's the double L that shortens the first E - traveller.
>
> > Britain? Shouldn't that be Brittain?
>
> Does your modification add anything to the comprehension of the
> concerned sentence?
> Or are you flexing your nitpick-muscles?

I did not imagine that my question was adding anything to anything. I
was hoping that Mr. Bedford's *answer* to my question would add
something to *my* comprehension of his assertion, because my feeble
brain has trouble understanding the rule which requires a double l in
traveller but not a double t in Britain. I'm sure your comment had
some kind of point, but I'm not going to ask what it was.

[Kip Williams]

Walter Bushell wrote:
> In article <slrnk2356...@gatekeeper.vic.com>,
> d...@gatekeeper.vic.com (David DeLaney) wrote:
>
>> Dave "maybe he was a Webelos?" DeLaney
>
> It would take you to scout that out.

A first-class response!


Kip W
rasfw

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

No idea; sorry.



--
Now available on Amazon or B&N: One-Eyed Jack.
Greg Kraft could see ghosts. That didn't mean he could stop them...

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On 2012-08-08 23:13:18 -0400, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) said:

> On 8/8/12 9:07 PM, Howard Brazee wrote:
>> On Wed, 08 Aug 2012 00:24:28 -0400, The Wanderer
>> <wand...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
>>
>>>> I can give an authoritative answer, because I ASKED David Weber at a
>>>> convention in Chicago many years ago.
>>>>
>>>> He pronounces it "webber."
>>>
>>> Thank you. That's the information I was looking for.
>>>
>>> Now I just have to change the reflexive pronunciation in my own mind, which
>>> while not a pleasant task is at least more comfortable than waffling in
>>> uncertainty about which way I should be trying to go with it.
>>
>> I've had to do that, with DuQuesne, and with (oddly enough),
>> MacIntyre. And probably others as well.
>
> I've failed to do it with DuQuesne. Oh, I can manage to pronounce it
> correctly in public, but in my head I'm still forcibly switching from
> "Doo-Kweznee" to "Doo-Kayne".

A couple of years living in Pittsburgh might cure that.

[Greg Goss]

Kay Shapero <k...@invalid.net> wrote:

>Ah, so unless the author didn't know this either, I've been
>mispronouncing "Kelvin Throop" wrong all these years. You've got my
>sympathies: my usual problem isn't that people can't pronounce my last
>name, it's that they can't spell it - and worse, think they can.

Back when spam mail used to come as physical paper, about a third of
my mail would come with a "gross misspelling".

[Mary Shafer]

On Tue, 7 Aug 2012 19:31:46 +0000 (UTC), jdni...@panix.com (James
Nicoll) wrote:

> http://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll (For all your "The problem with
> defending the English language [...]" T-shirt, cup and tote-bag needs)

I finally noticed this and promptly bought a couple of items. I used
to think that Usenet would only bankrupt me with book recommendations,
but now I know better.

Mary "A large part of why I love it."
--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer
We didn't just do weird stuff at Dryden, we wrote reports about it.
reunite....@gmail.com or mil...@qnet.com
Visit my blog at http://digitalknitter.blogspot.com/

[Brian M. Scott]

On Wed, 8 Aug 2012 18:24:42 -0700, Kay Shapero
<k...@invalid.net> wrote in
<news:MPG.2a8cb1318...@news.eternal-september.org>
in rec.arts.sf.written:

[...]

> my usual problem isn't that people can't pronounce my last
> name, it's that they can't spell it - and worse, think
> they can.

In that case I suspect that I've been mentally
mispronouncing it. You say \peer\, as if it were <Shapiro>,
and not \pair\?

Brian

[Rod Speed]

Brian M. Scott <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote
> Kay Shapero <k...@invalid.net> wrote

>> my usual problem isn't that people can't pronounce my last
>> name, it's that they can't spell it - and worse, think they can.

> In that case I suspect that I've been mentally mispronouncing it.

Why do you mentally pronounce it at all ?

[Brian M. Scott]

On Wed, 8 Aug 2012 20:46:28 -0700 (PDT), Butch Malahide
<fred....@gmail.com> wrote in
<news:93f45932-1d85-4499...@h11g2000yqk.googlegroups.com>
in rec.arts.sf.written:

> On Aug 8, 7:43�pm, Sjouke Burry <s@b> wrote:

>> Butch Malahide <fred.gal...@gmail.com> wrote in news:4f1443f0-052a-4ffd-
>> a777-960267124...@a17g2000yqg.googlegroups.com:

>>> On Aug 8, 2:59�pm, Jacey Bedford <lookin...@nospam.invalid> wrote:

>>>> Well, in Britain as well. That's why I can't get on with traveler (one
>>>> L) when it's the double L that shortens the first E - traveller.

>>> Britain? Shouldn't that be Brittain?

>> Does your modification add anything to the comprehension of the
>> concerned sentence?
>> Or are you flexing your nitpick-muscles?

> I did not imagine that my question was adding anything to anything. I
> was hoping that Mr. Bedford's

Jacey is definitely not *Mr.* Bedford. Her husband's name
is Brian. You can see them here:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artisan_%28group%29>

> *answer* to my question would add something to *my*
> comprehension of his assertion, because my feeble brain
> has trouble understanding the rule which requires a

> double l in traveller but not a double t in Britain. [...]

The rule in question would in fact give <Britain> another
<t>, and it doesn't actually apply to the <l(l)> of
<traveller>. (Except that English doesn't allow <vv>, it
*would* apply to <travel> to make <travvel> or <travvle>.)

Brian

[Brian M. Scott]

On Wed, 08 Aug 2012 19:11:03 -0600, Howard Brazee
<how...@brazee.net> wrote in
<news:4g36289j9938q475q...@4ax.com> in
rec.arts.sf.written:

> On Wed, 8 Aug 2012 16:43:59 -0700 (PDT), Kevrob <kev...@my-deja.com>
> wrote:

>>> > Well, in Britain as well. That's why I can't get on with traveler (one
>>> > L) when it's the double L that shortens the first E - traveller.

>>> Britain? Shouldn't that be Brittain?

>>Loan word from the Welsh makes an exception, right?

It's from classical Latin <Brit(t)annia>, subsequently
reinforced by Anglo-Norman <Brytayne>, <Brutaigne>,
<BritaineL, <Bretayne>, <Bretanye>, <Bretannie>, etc. The
Latin adjective was <Britannus>.

> Only from the Welsh? Well, if we excluded all words
> that came from elsewhere, what would be left?

Overall about 30% of the types (roughly, distinct dictionary
entries). In everyday conversation of the type of discourse
covered by the 1000 most frequent words, however, about 80%
would remain.

Brian

[Brian M. Scott]

On Thu, 9 Aug 2012 04:04:44 -0400, "Brian M. Scott"
<b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote in
<news:1563za9b6gvr7.wp6nmb3g8nrs$.d...@40tude.net> in
rec.arts.sf.written:

[...]

> <BritaineL, [...]

<Britaine>

Brian

[Butch Malahide]

On Aug 9, 2:59 am, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
> On Wed, 8 Aug 2012 20:46:28 -0700 (PDT), Butch Malahide

> <fred.gal...@gmail.com> wrote in
> <news:93f45932-1d85-4499...@h11g2000yqk.googlegroups.com>
> in rec.arts.sf.written:
>

> Jacey is definitely not *Mr.* Bedford.  Her husband's name
> is Brian.  You can see them here:
>
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artisan_%28group%29>

Thanks.

> The rule in question would in fact give <Britain> another
> <t>, and it doesn't actually apply to the <l(l)> of
> <traveller>.  (Except that English doesn't allow <vv>,

Except after <i> as in <chivvy>, <divvy>, <skivvy>, <flivver>? What a
strange rule, I wonder how that came about.

[Butch Malahide]

Could some language-savvy person please explain why <vv> can only
follow <i>?

[Greg Goss]

My spelling parser wants Chevy to have two of 'em.

[Brian M. Scott]

On Thu, 9 Aug 2012 01:44:42 -0700 (PDT), Butch Malahide
<fred....@gmail.com> wrote in
<news:9e913fd6-921d-4c51...@z11g2000yqa.googlegroups.com>
in rec.arts.sf.written:

> On Aug 9, 2:59�am, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@csuohio.edu> wrote:

[...]

>> (Except that English doesn't allow <vv>,

As you point out, that was slightly overstated. All four of
your examples are modern colloquial or slang. The same goes
for <savvy>. <Navvy> 'construction worker' (originally from
<navigator>) is the one exception that I've found: it's
recorded from 1829 and despite its rather informal origin,
it seems rapidly to have become the normal term.

> Except after <i> as in <chivvy>, <divvy>, <skivvy>,
> <flivver>? What a strange rule, I wonder how that came
> about.

English treats the letter <v> oddly in other ways as well.
For example, it does not appear finally: <live>, not <liv>
or <livv>; <love>, not <luv> or <luvv> (except in eye
dialect spellings); <relative>, not <relativ>; and so on.
This, I think, is largely a consequence of the fact that Old
English and early Middle English simply did not have final
/v/. In Old English the letter <f> represented both /f/ and
/v/, and the correct allophone was entirely predictable from
the phonetic context. In particular, final <f> was /f/, but
intervocalic <f> was <v>. The verb <live>, for example, is
from OE <lifian>, which was pronounced with /v/; it was
still disyllabic <live(n)> in Middle English. Although it
was not needed to signal a long /i/, the final <e> was
retained in the spelling even after it ceased to be
pronounced. I'm not sure why this occurred specifically
with <v>, but I suspect that it had to do with the fact that
<u> and <v> were not treated as distinct letters (as opposed
to variant forms of a single letter) until somewhat later.
In many medieval and even Elizabethan hands the distribution
of <u> and <v> has nothing to do with pronunciation and
everything to do with position in the word, just as long <s>
is found everywhere except at the end of a word, where short
<s> is used.

I suspect that the same factors somehow underlie the
avoidance of <vv>, probably along with the fact that at one
time <uu> = <vv> = <w>.

And of course once a convention is well-established, it
tends to be self-perpetuating.

Brian

[Brian M. Scott]

On Thu, 9 Aug 2012 02:01:07 -0700 (PDT), Butch Malahide
<fred....@gmail.com> wrote in
<news:9fafd6eb-d29c-4f09...@y5g2000yqj.googlegroups.com>
in rec.arts.sf.written:

[...]

> Could some language-savvy person please explain why <vv>
> can only follow <i>?

In addition to <savvy> there's <navvy>. With the exception
of <flivver>, whose origin is completely obscure, the
available examples are all <-vvy>. If <beverage> were to
have generated a pet form of this type, I'd not be terribly
surprised to find it spelled <bevvy>. Similarly, I could
imagine someone coining <revvy> ~ <revvie> as a (possibly
derogatory) slang term for Revolutionary War re-enactors.
Thus, it may well just be an accident that we haven't one or
two <-evv> examples. I can't think of any reasonable source
of <-ovv> examples, though, and the likeliest sources of
<-uvv> examples have already been pre-empted by other
spellings (e.g., <lovey>).

By the way, <chivvy> seems to be a rare instance of the
double-consonant rule superseding a traditional spelling:
the older form is <chevy> ~ <chivy> (as in the place-name
<Chevy Chase>).

Brian

[Gary R. Schmidt]

On 9/08/2012 7:59 PM, Brian M. Scott wrote:
[SNIP]

If <beverage> were to
> have generated a pet form of this type, I'd not be terribly
> surprised to find it spelled <bevvy>.

You've got to get out more, laddie. Many a pub will serve you a wee
bevvy if you ask for one. Even in Straya, mate.

Cheers,
Gary B-)

--
When men talk to their friends, they insult each other.
They don't really mean it.
When women talk to their friends, they compliment each other.
They don't mean it either.

[Walter Bushell]

In article <TKGUr.5762$RL6....@newsfe13.iad>,

No just a cub reporter.

[Chris]

On Aug 7, 12:53 pm, d...@gatekeeper.vic.com (David DeLaney) wrote:
> James Nicoll <jdnic...@panix.com> wrote:
> >Robert Carnegie  <rja.carne...@excite.com> wrote:
> >>Not as in "wabe", the place where slithy toves gyre and gimble?
> >>It rhymes with "outgrabe".  Dredging up old German lessons, I'd have
> >>said "V'Eh-burr".  As for being in a position to know, who is he?
>
> >Weber is a very, very common name amongst Mennonites up here and they
> >pronounce it weeber. For that matter it's my ex-sister-in-law's surname and
> >despite being a Mennonite she is not one of the local Webers*; she pronounces
> >it weeber as well.
>
> Well, ok, but don't the Mennonites/Amish have German in their background in
> a nontrivial amount? Which means inherited vowels are sounded differently
> than in Standard Worldwide English USA Pronunciation...

The Amish are also called (in the NE USA, anyhow) "Pennsylvania Dutch"
which is a corruption of "Deutsch", so yeah, lots of German there.

Chris

snip

[Michael Stemper]

In article <proto-7D25F8....@news.panix.com>, Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> writes:
>In article <TKGUr.5762$RL6....@newsfe13.iad>, Kip Williams <mrk...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Walter Bushell wrote:

>> >> Dave "maybe he was a Webelos?" DeLaney
>> >
>> > It would take you to scout that out.
>>
>> A first-class response!
>

>No just a cub reporter.

Are you kidding? He's a Star!

--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
Life's too important to take seriously.

[Howard Brazee]

On Thu, 9 Aug 2012 00:14:42 -0400, Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net>
wrote:

>>> I've had to do that, with DuQuesne, and with (oddly enough),
>>> MacIntyre. And probably others as well.
>>
>> I've failed to do it with DuQuesne. Oh, I can manage to pronounce it
>> correctly in public, but in my head I'm still forcibly switching from
>> "Doo-Kweznee" to "Doo-Kayne".
>
>A couple of years living in Pittsburgh might cure that.

Why Pittsburgh?