How should we pronounce country names?
Michelle
Mr. C wrote:
> Ever wonder why we do NOT pronounce a country's name the
> same as
> people native to that country?
My only guess could be that each language customizes the
word to fit its own language type (though English takes in
enough other foreign words).
I've always believed that the correct pronunciation of a
city or state is how the natives pronounce the word. For
example, Illinois is not pronounced according to either the
original native American phonetics or the phonetics of the
French who first transcribed the name. As a native of
Wisconsin, I am bothered by people who consider the
pronunciation of most of the natives (wi-SKON-sin) wrong
(most out-of-staters say wis-KON-sin).
Yuno Hu
----------
In article <35341064...@news.ismi.net>, lcalk...@ismi.net (Mr. C)
wrote:
>Ever wonder why we do NOT pronounce a country's name the same as
>people native to that country? For example, is Spain called Spain in
>Spain? (gosh, could I make a song up and include something about rain
>in it? :-) I think Italy is pronounced as Italia in Italy (ah ... or
>would that be in Italia :-) Any thoughts?
>
Sure. For one thing we'd have a problem using the Spanish name, España,
because English has neither the letter ñ (n with a tilde), nor the sound it
represents. There does seem to be a movement to give newly emerging
countries an English pronounciation that is close to the native name, e.g.
when the nation whose capital is Pinsk became independent, it was for a time
referred to as 'Byelorussia', the traditional English name. But soon this
was changed to Belorus (pronounced /bjElou rus/ byello-roos), as I recall
due to some vague argument that calling it Byelorussia made it seem as if
this country was just some minor derivative of Russia. But if I'm not
mistaken the name of Russia in Russian is Rus. So in Russian and
Byelorussian, Belorus *is* a derivative of Rus. Besides the transliteration
is horrible, no indication of the yod after the initial 'B' is given. I
think this is an instance of being overly sensitive, when there ain't really
nothin' to be sensitive about. Same for Moldav and [the] Ukraine. (In some
of these PC type reworkings, there's something gained, e.g., in the
generic-he-versus-singular-they controversy I vote for singular they, since
I don't believe generic he has historically been used so much to include
females, but rather as a reflection of an underlying assumption that the
male sex is somehow truer or more complete.
Ohcloseitquicktheresabignightcrawlergettinout).
Jim Douglass
As one who is not from the state, I hear natives take the "c" and use a
"g" sound. First noticed this on an NPR program which originates in
Madison, When audience members identify where they hail from, it's
always "Wis-gon-sin".
Hobbledeeboopus
one possible reason is that the names of countries in English do not
always correspond to something we could pronounce like they do. Germany
is a fine example. Since I can think of no way to manipulate the english
pronunciation of Germany to come out as Deutschland. Sometimes, the names
we use have come from trying to imitate the real name. I think (and I"m
prepared to be wrong, if I have to) this is the case with Japan (Nippon,
sometimes, Nihon). Other times, we may have even started out pronouncing
it right and just anglicized it over time.
this is all i've got. if i'm wrong, tell me (nicely). if you
agree, great. either way, just my two cents...
sincerely,
brett andrew christensen
On Wed, 15 Apr 1998, Mr. C wrote:
> Ever wonder why we do NOT pronounce a country's name the same as
> people native to that country? For example, is Spain called Spain in
> Spain? (gosh, could I make a song up and include something about rain
> in it? :-) I think Italy is pronounced as Italia in Italy (ah ... or
> would that be in Italia :-) Any thoughts?
>
>
>
> --------------------------------------------
> PLEASE NOTE: To send me e-mail, please remove the capital
> letters from the address. Thanks.
>
>
----------------------
"...it was the sweetness of your skin, the hope of all we might have been
that filled me with the hope to wish impossible things."
Brett "One Imaginary Boy" Christensen
bchr...@U.Arizona.EDU
Mr. C
Felix Boenchendorf
I think there're several reasons. In many languages are sounds which
don't exist in others, for instance there're two different "ch"-sounds in
German and one of both is unique (as far as I know). Another good example
are the Asian languages like Mandarin, Cantonese, Hainan, and so on, which
are based on 1st signs or characters (or what term you apply for it) and
2nd on an intonation which is of much more importance than in
Indo-European languages. As we're not able to produce such sounds we have
to make it up.
Another point is that each language has its own rhythmics. In English
*most* words are stressed on the antepenult whereas the first syllable is
preferred in German. To me it's really hard to pronounce German words
correctly when I've been speaking English for a few minutes.
Felix
a1a5...@bc.sympatico.ca
On Tue, 14 Apr 1998 22:07:43 -0400, P&DSchultz <schu...@erols.com>
wrote:
>Michelle wrote:
...
>> I've always believed that the correct pronunciation of a
>> city or state is how the natives pronounce the word...
>
>This leads to news readers telling us about "the New MAY-drid
>earthquake" (referring to New Madrid, Missouri), reverently apeing
>the provincial pronunciation of the few hundred inhabitants.
And the description of the colour of MAYdrid's post-seismic
water-supply as being that of ashfolt or likrish?
D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff
>On Tue, 14 Apr 1998 22:07:43 -0400, P&DSchultz <schu...@erols.com>
>wrote:
>
>>Michelle wrote:
> ...
>>> I've always believed that the correct pronunciation of a
>>> city or state is how the natives pronounce the word...
>>
>>This leads to news readers telling us about "the New MAY-drid
>>earthquake" (referring to New Madrid, Missouri), reverently apeing
>>the provincial pronunciation of the few hundred inhabitants.
Do they really say "New M[eI]drid"? In the St. Louis media (which has
devoted a lot of coverage to the upcoming earthquake), it's always "New
M[%]drid".
Maybe someone's getting confused by nearby Cairo?
--
Daniel "Da" von Brighoff /\ Dilettanten
(de...@midway.uchicago.edu) /__\ erhebt Euch
/____\ gegen die Kunst!
D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff
In article <353448BA...@nettec.org>,
Felix Boenchendorf <fe...@nettec.org> wrote:
>I think there're several reasons. In many languages are sounds which
>don't exist in others, for instance there're two different "ch"-sounds in
>German and one of both is unique (as far as I know).
Depends what you mean by "sound" and "unique". Since phonemes are lan-
guage-specific, each one can be said to be "unique". However, since some
people consider the German Ich-Laut and Ach-Laut allophones of a single
phoneme, your definition of "sound" probably roughly corresponds to
"phone". The phone [C] is found in a good number of languages, including
Japanese and even English. (Compare the initial sounds of English 'Hugh',
Japanese 'hito', and German 'Chemie' [northern pronunciation].)
>Another good example
>are the Asian languages like Mandarin, Cantonese, Hainan, and so on, which
>are based on 1st signs or characters (or what term you apply for it) and
>2nd on an intonation which is of much more importance than in Indo-
>European languages. As we're not able to produce such sounds we have to
>make it up.
"Intonation" is, in fact, vitally important to Indo-European languages.
What they don't have, as a rule, is lexical tone.
>Another point is that each language has its own rhythmics. In English
>*most* words are stressed on the antepenult whereas the first syllable is
>preferred in German. To me it's really hard to pronounce German words
>correctly when I've been speaking English for a few minutes.
Considering that I pronounce only three of the (presumably English) words
in your post on the antepenult, you may want to reconsider this general-
isation. [Note: One stressed antepenult out of five possibilities.]
Donna Richoux
Mr. C <lcalk...@ismi.net> wrote:
> Ever wonder why we do NOT pronounce a country's name the same as
> people native to that country? For example, is Spain called Spain in
> Spain? (gosh, could I make a song up and include something about rain
> in it? :-) I think Italy is pronounced as Italia in Italy (ah ... or
> would that be in Italia :-) Any thoughts?
I also find questions about placenames very interesting. I own a Dutch
map of Europe; I thought each country was marked with the name as it is
spelled in that country (allowing for using the Western alphabet) but
now I detect some Dutch influence in the spelling, such as -ija for -ia,
and in the choice of the Germanic name for Switzerland. I still think
that overall they must be closer to the country's own version than many
English names.
Here they are in alphabetical order. If you can identify all of them,
you are probably a coin or stamp collector:
Belarus
Belgique/Belgie
Bosna i Herzegovina
Bulgarija
Ceska Rep.
Danmark
Deutschland
Eesti Vabarik
Espana
France
Hellas
Hrvatska
Ireland (Eire)
Island
Italia
Jugoslavija
Latvija
Lietuva
Luxembourg
Makedonia
Magyarorszag
Moldova
Nederland
Norge
Osterreich
Polska
Portugal
Romania
Schweiz
Shqiperi
Slovenska
Slovenija
Suomi
Sverige
Ukraina
United Kingdom
When I was looking for something else in amazon.com, I noticed a listing
for this book: "Fifth United Nations Conference on the Standardization
of Geographical Names"/E/Conf.79/5/Sales No. E.88.I.7. $12.00. Has
anybody ever seen this, or know anything about it?
Best wishes --- Donna Richoux
D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff
In article <1d7jca8.15w...@p019.hlm.euronet.nl>,
Donna Richoux <tr...@euronet.nl> wrote:
>Mr. C <lcalk...@ismi.net> wrote:
>
>> Ever wonder why we do NOT pronounce a country's name the same as
>> people native to that country? For example, is Spain called Spain in
>> Spain? (gosh, could I make a song up and include something about rain
>> in it? :-) I think Italy is pronounced as Italia in Italy (ah ... or
>> would that be in Italia :-) Any thoughts?
>
>I also find questions about placenames very interesting. I own a Dutch
>map of Europe; I thought each country was marked with the name as it is
>spelled in that country (allowing for using the Western alphabet) but
>now I detect some Dutch influence in the spelling, such as -ija for -ia,
>and in the choice of the Germanic name for Switzerland. I still think
>that overall they must be closer to the country's own version than many
>English names.
It's not "Dutch influence"; it's simply how those names are spelled.
Using <y> for [j] is (as the IPA character hints) basically an English in-
novation. For those languages which use the Cyrillic alphabet, it should
come as no suprise that romanisation schemes close to the orthographies of
their neighbours are preferred.
As for the choice of "Schweiz", I suppose the fairest solution would be to
include all four official names, but since I assume they want *some* space
left to put names of Swiss cities and natural features, it makes sense to
limit the choices to the name used by the majority of the population.
Skitt
Donna Richoux wrote in message
<1d7jca8.15w...@p019.hlm.euronet.nl>...
>I also find questions about placenames very interesting. I own a
Dutch
>map of Europe; I thought each country was marked with the name as it
is
>spelled in that country (allowing for using the Western alphabet) but
>now I detect some Dutch influence in the spelling, such as -ija
for -ia,
>and in the choice of the Germanic name for Switzerland. I still think
>that overall they must be closer to the country's own version than
many
>English names.
>
The only one that throws me is Shqiperi, and no, I do not collect
stuff. Latvija is the way the natives spell it. The other "ijas" are
also, to my knowledge, in the native spelling and do not have anything
to do with a Dutch influence.
--
Skitt http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/5537/
Dennis Gaunt
Jim Douglass (dougdo...@webtv.net) wrote:
: As one who is not from the state, I hear natives take the "c" and use a
: "g" sound. First noticed this on an NPR program which originates in
: Madison, When audience members identify where they hail from, it's
: always "Wis-gon-sin".
:
Not to mention "aboot" for about.
"Yah, sure" as a response to just about anything.
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
| Dennis D. Gaunt | Internet: dga...@uhl.uiowa.edu |
| The University of Iowa | Voice: (319) 335-4500 |
| Oakdale Research Campus | FAX: (319) 335-4555 |
| Iowa City, Iowa 52242 | |
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Simon R. Hughes
Thus Spake Michelle <mich...@ameritech.net>:
> Mr. C wrote:
>
> > Ever wonder why we do NOT pronounce a country's name the
> > same as
> > people native to that country?
>
> I've always believed that the correct pronunciation of a
> city or state is how the natives pronounce the word.
Please give us some example of how to pronounce Chinese names with
existing English orthography.
Simon R. Hughes
mailto:shu...@geocities.com
(Mail not sent directly to the above address will be deleted without being read.)
H Gilmer
: On Tue, 14 Apr 1998 22:07:43 -0400, P&DSchultz <schu...@erols.com>
: wrote:
: >
: >This leads to news readers telling us about "the New MAY-drid
: >earthquake" (referring to New Madrid, Missouri), reverently apeing
: >the provincial pronunciation of the few hundred inhabitants.
It makes a difference whether the inhabitants of the place speak the
same language (more or less) as you do. An English speaker saying
"Paree" when referring to the French city is being pretentious. An
English speaker pronouncing "Worcester" with three syllables rather
than as "wooster" is being ignorant or perverse. Same goes for New
Madrid, Cairo (kay-ro), BER-lin, and all sorts of other places whose
inhabitants have established new pronunciations for a new use of the
old name. If you say "New MadRID", all you reveal is that you don't
know or don't care how the place name is pronounced. The fact that
there is a city in Spain with a different pronunciation is entirely
irrelevant; it is the few hundred provinical inhabitants who get to
decide how it's pronounced.
Now, if someone wants to discuss the New Madrid seismic zone in
Spanish or Swahili, all bets are off.
Hg
Mark Odegard
**Please note Spam Trap** On Wed, 15 Apr 1998 15:21:55 -0400,
"Skitt" <al...@myself.com> in <6h31ep$p9...@svlss.lmms.lmco.com>
wrote
|The only one that throws me is Shqiperi, and no, I do not collect
|stuff. Latvija is the way the natives spell it. The other "ijas" are
|also, to my knowledge, in the native spelling and do not have anything
|to do with a Dutch influence.
Shquiperi throws me too. Turkey?
I'm guessing with these, guesses made partly by elimination:
Hrvatska = Slovakia
Eesti Vabarik = Estonia
--
Mark Odegard. (descape to email)
Emailed copies of responses are very much appreciated.
Tom Heathcote
In article <1d7jca8.15w...@p019.hlm.euronet.nl>,
tr...@euronet.nl (Donna Richoux) wrote...
> Here they are in alphabetical order. If you can identify all of them,
> you are probably a coin or stamp collector:
>
I couldn't resist... and in case anyone else was wondering...
Belarus Belarus (was Byelorussia)
Belgique/Belgie Belgium
Bosna i Herzegovina Bosnia/Hertzegovina
Bulgarija Bulgaria
Ceska Rep. Czech Republic
Danmark Denmark
Deutschland Germany
Eesti Vabarik Estonia [by a process of elimination]
Espana Spain
France France
Hellas Greece
Hrvatska Croatia
Ireland (Eire) Ireland
Island Iceland
Italia Italy
Jugoslavija Yugoslavia (what's left of it)
Latvija Latvia
Lietuva Lithuania
Luxembourg Luxembourg
Makedonia Macedonia
Magyarorszag Hungary
Moldova Moldova (was Moldavia)
Nederland The Netherlands
Norge Norway
Osterreich Austria
Polska Poland
Portugal Portugal
Romania Romania
Schweiz Switzerland
Shqiperi Albania
Slovenska Slovakia
Slovenija Slovenia
Suomi Finland
Sverige Sweden
Ukraina (The) Ukraine
On a related note, both my passport and driving licence are those
pink European style ones, and have various phrases translated
into the nine other languages of the EU (the documents predate
the latest enlargement, so do not include Swedish or Finnish).
I noticed that in both documents the translations always seemed
to be in the same order, an order whose rationale escaped me:
Danish
German
Greek
Spanish
French
Irish
Italian
Dutch
Portugese
After a moment of inspiration, I concluded that this was
alphabetical order, but with the name of each language expressed
*in that language*:
Dansk
Deutsch
Ellanic (?)
Espanol
Francais
Irish (?)
Italiano
Nederlands
Portugues
I'm not quite sure what the Greek and Irish names for those
languages are. I thought that Irish for "Irish" was "Erse" but
that would put it in a different place in the list.
--
Tom Heathcote
T...@centipede.demonx.co.ukx (remove both x's to reply)
Brian J Goggin
On Thu, 16 Apr 1998 09:22:42 +0100, T...@centipede.demonx.co.ukx (Tom
Heathcote) wrote:
[...]
>I'm not quite sure what the Greek and Irish names for those
>languages are. I thought that Irish for "Irish" was "Erse" but
>that would put it in a different place in the list.
Gaeilge.
bjg
SLHinton17
Michelle wrote:
...
> I've always believed that the correct pronunciation of a
> city or state is how the natives pronounce the word...
********************************
I agree, so long as the city or state in question is in your own country and
your own language. Thus if the inhhabitants of Peru, Indiana, say "PEE-ru,:
that's its correct promunciation in the US. Paris, Texas, is pronounced
"PAIR-iss", not "Pa-REE." I've heard some people who mispronounce names in
foreign languages, as when my 4th-grade teacher in Oklahoma insisited that
Brussels should be called "BRUCK-sels." (She also created a graphic picture by
calling the Elephant Butte Dam "Elephant's Butt Dam.")
But names of foreign places very rarely follow the pronunciation of the natives
of those places, and the "correct" name is the one that is generally accepted.
I once had some difficulty in sending a telegram (in English) from Monaco to
Amsterdam, but at first could not remember the French word for Netherlands. The
haughty clerks at the telegraph office were disdainfully unhelpful -- but I
finally remembered "Pays Bas."
That was the correct name in Monaco!
Sam Hinton
La Jolla, CA
D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff
In article <35359001....@news2.means.net>,
Mark Odegard <ode...@means.netscape> wrote:
>**Please note Spam Trap** On Wed, 15 Apr 1998 15:21:55 -0400,
>"Skitt" <al...@myself.com> in <6h31ep$p9...@svlss.lmms.lmco.com>
>wrote
>
>|The only one that throws me is Shqiperi, and no, I do not collect
>|stuff. Latvija is the way the natives spell it. The other "ijas" are
>|also, to my knowledge, in the native spelling and do not have anything
>|to do with a Dutch influence.
>
>Shquiperi throws me too. Turkey?
No "u". <q> is a palatal stop in...Albanian!
>I'm guessing with these, guesses made partly by elimination:
>Hrvatska = Slovakia
Then what is "Slovenska"?
ClaudiaBP
I also think that the way of pronounce country names changes with time, and I'm
thinking about my own country, Argentina, which elderly people pronounce in a
diferent way as young people.(however none of then as the locals!)
my two p. (I live in England)
Claudia
a1a5...@bc.sympatico.ca
On Thu, 16 Apr 1998 11:11:01 GMT, b...@wordwrights.ie (Brian J Goggin)
wrote:
And "Erse" disappeared back into Chaucer?
D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff
In article <3535d318...@news1.telia.com>,
Simon R. Hughes <shu...@geocities.com> wrote:
>Thus Spake Michelle <mich...@ameritech.net>:
>
>> Mr. C wrote:
>>
>> > Ever wonder why we do NOT pronounce a country's name the
>> > same as
>> > people native to that country?
>>
>
>Please give us some example of how to pronounce Chinese names with
>existing English orthography.
Beijing ['bej'dZIN]
Guangdong ['gwAN'doN]
Tiananmen ['tjEn'An'mEn]
Zhang Zemin ['dZAN'dz@'mIn]
Xinhua ['SIn'hwA]
Not, this isn't *exactly* how the Chinese pronounce them, but it's damn
close. Closer, I suspect, than most English speakers get when they take
on French names.
P&DSchultz
H Gilmer wrote:
> ... If you say "New MadRID", all you reveal is that you don't
> know or don't care how the place name is pronounced. The fact that
> there is a city in Spain with a different pronunciation is entirely
> irrelevant; it is the few hundred provinical inhabitants who get to
They can decide whatever they want, but as with any other word it is
the majority of speakers who decide on the pronunciation, not a small
local committee. The majority is willing to go along with the locals,
as long as the locals are fairly numerous and don't seem too ignorant
(e.g. Kay-ro, IL, and Mahss-ko, ID). But the residents of little towns
like New Madrid, MO, and Lake Orion (Lake OR-yon), MI, are going to
have to get used to people pronouncing their town name correctly, and
not as they themselves do.
//P. Schultz
jfri...@nnm.cc.nm.us
In article <ErGp6...@midway.uchicago.edu>,
de...@midway.uchicago.edu (D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff) wrote:
>
> >On Tue, 14 Apr 1998 22:07:43 -0400, P&DSchultz <schu...@erols.com>
> >wrote:
> >
> > ...
> >>> I've always believed that the correct pronunciation of a
> >>
> >>This leads to news readers telling us about "the New MAY-drid
> >>earthquake" (referring to New Madrid, Missouri), reverently apeing
> >>the provincial pronunciation of the few hundred inhabitants.
>
> Do they really say "New M[eI]drid"? In the St. Louis media (which has
> devoted a lot of coverage to the upcoming earthquake), it's always "New
> M[%]drid".
I agree--when I lived in Illinois, all I ever heard was "MADrid". Worse
yet, just south of Santa Fe is MADrid, New Mexico--where you'd think people
would know better.
Jerry Friedman
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
http://www.dejanews.com/ Now offering spam-free web-based newsreading
Hannah Dvorak-Carbone
In article <35359001....@news2.means.net>, ode...@means.netscape says...
>
>**Please note Spam Trap** On Wed, 15 Apr 1998 15:21:55 -0400,
>"Skitt" <al...@myself.com> in <6h31ep$p9...@svlss.lmms.lmco.com>
>wrote
>
>|The only one that throws me is Shqiperi, and no, I do not collect
>|stuff. Latvija is the way the natives spell it. The other "ijas" are
>|also, to my knowledge, in the native spelling and do not have anything
>|to do with a Dutch influence.
>
>Shquiperi throws me too. Turkey?
>
>Hrvatska = Slovakia
I didn't see the original post that prompted these guesses, but
Slovakia in Slovak is, I believe, Slovensko. (I speak Czech, but
not Slovak, and it's definitely Slovensko in Czech; it's probably
similar in Slovak.) I bet Hrvatska is Croatia.
- Hannah Dvorak-Carbone
Eric The Read
P&DSchultz <schu...@erols.com> writes:
> But the residents of little towns like New Madrid, MO, and Lake Orion
> (Lake OR-yon), MI, are going to have to get used to people pronouncing
> their town name correctly, and not as they themselves do.
You're still making the same error in assuming that there even exists a
"correct" pronunciation for a place name. The `correct' name for a place
(if such a thing can be said to exist) is whatever the people who live
there call it. If they speak a different language than you do, then
there's certainly the option of using a different pronunciation in *your*
language, but when speaking theirs, it's just asking to be misunderstood.
Pronouncing Lake Orion, MI like the name of the constellation is wrong.
Pronouncing Cairo, IL like the city in Egypt is equally wrong.
Pronouncing New Madrid, MO like the city in Spain is just as wrong as the
others.
Expecting people who have grown up pronouncing the name of their town a
certain way to call that way "wrong" and start doing it "correctly" is
futile, and pointless to boot. It's NOT wrong-- it's how they do it
THERE. How they pronounce the same orthography elsewhere is irrelevant;
they're two distinct places.
-=Eric
N.Mitchum
Niklas Bonnemark wrote:
-----
> Actually, it is _Moldavia_ or _Moldova_. Perhaps you mixed it up with
> _Moldau_, the German name of the river Vltava in the Czech Republic. I
> don't know if _Moldau_ has ever been used in English.
>.....
For Americans it used to be "Moldavia"; but the Moldavans must
have objected, because now we're expected to say and write
"Moldava."
If by "Moldau" you are referring throughout to the river, the name
certainly is used in English: it's well known as one of the six
tone poems in Smetana's *Ma Vlast*. But possibly you were merely
conjecturing that someone had confused "Moldav" with "Moldau."
--- NM
Mailed copies of replies are appreciated. (Mailers: drop HINTS.)
D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff
In article <6h5jlh$v3g$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, <jfri...@nnm.cc.nm.us> wrote:
>In article <ErGp6...@midway.uchicago.edu>,
> de...@midway.uchicago.edu (D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff) wrote:
>>
>> >On Tue, 14 Apr 1998 22:07:43 -0400, P&DSchultz <schu...@erols.com>
>> >wrote:
>> >
>> >>Michelle wrote:
>> > ...
>> >>> I've always believed that the correct pronunciation of a
>> >>> city or state is how the natives pronounce the word...
>> >>
>> >>This leads to news readers telling us about "the New MAY-drid
>> >>earthquake" (referring to New Madrid, Missouri), reverently apeing
>> >>the provincial pronunciation of the few hundred inhabitants.
>> [snip]
>>
>> Do they really say "New M[eI]drid"? In the St. Louis media (which has
>> devoted a lot of coverage to the upcoming earthquake), it's always "New
>> M[%]drid".
>...
> I agree--when I lived in Illinois, all I ever heard was "MADrid". Worse
>yet, just south of Santa Fe is MADrid, New Mexico--where you'd think people
>would know better.
And you'd think the people of Spain, living as close to North Africa as
they do, would know better and use the correct Arabic pronunciation of
"Madrid" (i.e. [m@drit]) instead of the bastardised version they cling to.
Donna Richoux
Polar <s.m...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
[Some other people said:]
> >>Hrvatska = Slovakia
No, Hrvatska = Croatia
> >Then what is "Slovenska"?
>
> Sounds like an adjective.
I have a lot of trouble with Eastern Europe, too. Now there are two
countries that start with "Slov-".
Slovenska or (in English) Slovakia is the eastern half of former
Czechoslovakia.
Slovenija or (in English) Slovenia is one of the spin-offs of
Yugoslavia.
Best --- Donna Richoux
Simon R. Hughes
Thus Spake de...@midway.uchicago.edu (D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff):
> In article <3535d318...@news1.telia.com>,
> Simon R. Hughes <shu...@geocities.com> wrote:
> >Thus Spake Michelle <mich...@ameritech.net>:
> >
> >> Mr. C wrote:
> >>
> >> > Ever wonder why we do NOT pronounce a country's name the
> >> > same as
> >> > people native to that country?
> >>
> >> I've always believed that the correct pronunciation of a
> >> city or state is how the natives pronounce the word.
> >
> >Please give us some example of how to pronounce Chinese names with
> >existing English orthography.
>
> Beijing ['bej'dZIN]
> Guangdong ['gwAN'doN]
> Tiananmen ['tjEn'An'mEn]
> Zhang Zemin ['dZAN'dz@'mIn]
> Xinhua ['SIn'hwA]
>
> Not, this isn't *exactly* how the Chinese pronounce them, but it's damn
> close. Closer, I suspect, than most English speakers get when they take
> on French names.
Since (Mandarin) Chinese has distinctive intonation (i.e. the
intonation tells you which word you have just heard), your examples
are not even close. I suppose it would be possible to get closer with
a new system of diacritics, but one would have to be taught how to
interpret them. Why not learn Chinese instead?
M. Ranjit Mathews
Hannah Dvorak-Carbone wrote:
> I didn't see the original post that prompted these guesses, but
> Slovakia in Slovak is, I believe, Slovensko. (I speak Czech, but
> not Slovak, and it's definitely Slovensko in Czech; it's probably
> similar in Slovak.) I bet Hrvatska is Croatia.
Right on all counts. Now, why's Dvorak pronounced Dvorzhak ?
D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff
In article <353730d4...@news1.telia.com>,
Simon R. Hughes <shu...@geocities.com> wrote:
>Thus Spake de...@midway.uchicago.edu (D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff):
>
>> In article <3535d318...@news1.telia.com>,
>> Simon R. Hughes <shu...@geocities.com> wrote:
>> >Thus Spake Michelle <mich...@ameritech.net>:
>> >>
>> >> city or state is how the natives pronounce the word.
>> >
>> >Please give us some example of how to pronounce Chinese names with
>> >existing English orthography.
>>
>> Beijing ['bej'dZIN]
>> Guangdong ['gwAN'doN]
>> Tiananmen ['tjEn'An'mEn]
>> Zhang Zemin ['dZAN'dz@'mIn]
>> Xinhua ['SIn'hwA]
>>
>> Not, this isn't *exactly* how the Chinese pronounce them, but it's damn
>> close. Closer, I suspect, than most English speakers get when they take
>> on French names.
>
>Since (Mandarin) Chinese has distinctive intonation (i.e. the
>intonation tells you which word you have just heard), your examples
>are not even close. I suppose it would be possible to get closer with
>a new system of diacritics, but one would have to be taught how to
>interpret them. Why not learn Chinese instead?
Not knowing Chinese, how can you say how close they are? In fact, the
tones vary quite a bit just within Mandarin. An English speaker pro-
nouncing those words exactly as written may be no more distant from the
standard pronunciation than a speaker of Subeihua, Shandongese, Chongqing-
hua, etc.
And, technically, accents to show the tones are a part of Pinyin. I have
simply left them off for simplicity's sake.
P&DSchultz
Eric The Read wrote:
> You're still making the same error in assuming that there even exists a
> "correct" pronunciation for a place name. The `correct' name for a place
> (if such a thing can be said to exist) is whatever the people who live
You still do not understand, and are making the same errors. The
correct pronunciation is whatever the overwhelming makority of
speakers decide. If the majority decides that "Madrid" is stressed
on the final syllable, then the residents of New Madrid will have
to get used to that. They themselves can say whatever they like,
but that doesn't make it correct.
//P. Schultz
P&DSchultz
D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff wrote:
> And you'd think the people of Spain, living as close to North Africa as
> they do, would know better and use the correct Arabic pronunciation of
> "Madrid" (i.e. [m@drit]) instead of the bastardised version they cling to.
The Arabic pronunciation is not [m@drit]. It is "mah-DREED"--
virtually the same as the standard Castillian pronunciation that you
learned in high school Spanish (although the people who actually live
is Madrid mostly call it "mah-DHREE). The Moors originally called it
"Majrit," but that was probably a version of whatever it was called
before they got there.
//P. Schultz
Sean Holland
Eric The Read <emsc...@mail.uccs.edu> wrote:
(snip)
> Expecting people who have grown up pronouncing the name of their town a
> certain way to call that way "wrong" and start doing it "correctly" is
> futile, and pointless to boot. It's NOT wrong-- it's how they do it
> THERE. How they pronounce the same orthography elsewhere is irrelevant;
> they're two distinct places.
>
But it is equally wrong-headed for the people of that small town to
expect the world to know that Cairo is pronounced Kay-roh or whatever it
is. How is anyone else supposed to know how they pronounce a
concatenation of letters that has a much more famous variant? In Asia I
once met an American from Oregon who spoke disparagingly of anyone who
didn't know that Eugene is pronounced YOU-jean by its inhabitants rather
than the expected you-JEAN. The fine people of Eugene are welcome to
pronounce the name of their city however they like. They can pronounce
it OY-geen for all I care. But they shouldn't expect the rest of the
world to have any idea of this.
As for Cairo, Illinois, whenever I have read this name in a novel or
magazine I have heard KIGH-roh in my mind's ear. The actual
pronunciation used by the residents is their affair. I have it filed
under "trivia".
--
Sean
To e-mail me, take out the garbage.
Sean Holland
<a1a5...@bc.sympatico.ca> wrote:
> And "Erse" disappeared back into Chaucer?
You refer to the part where the young woman hung her erse out the
window for the young man to kiss?
In Patrick O'Brian's "HMS Surprise", the Irish surgeon Maturin is
surprised to find that he can understand sailors from some Scottish
islands who are speaking Erse, while he, being Irish, spoke Gaelic as a
child. I can't believe that O'Brian got it wrong. Could Mr Goggin set
the record straight on this?
P&DSchultz
Sean Holland wrote:
> But it is equally wrong-headed for the people of that small town to
> expect the world to know that Cairo is pronounced Kay-roh or whatever it
> is. How is anyone else supposed to know how they pronounce a
They can be even dumber than that. Years ago, when something happened
in Lake Orion, Michigan, important enough to make the national news
(I forget what exactly happened), the residents were not only
disappointed that Walter Cronkite didn't know how to say Lake OR-yon.
No. It was more than that. They were shocked that he was so illiterate
that he didn't even know that the proper pronunciation or Orion -- in
ANY context -- is OR-yon! "What an ignoramus," they all thought.
//P. Schultz
Robert Lieblich
Okay, the argument is over whether the locals or the rest of the world
get to determine the "correct" pronunciation. What we have here is a
variant of the pre/descriptivist dispute. It will not be resolved.
I'd just like to point out that in my experience, most people who do not
live in the place where the locals have a distinctive pronunciation for
the name will adapt when they discover that they are out of step with
the locals. If everyone around you in a particular Indiana town is
saying PEE-ru, anything else sounds out of step.
A similar phenomenon occurs when the local designation differs from the
formal name. In the Bay Area, the central city is commonly called "The
City" (and never "Frisco," except from ignorance or as an insult). In
the Washington, DC, area, where I live, the central city is universally
called "The District." I can instantly spot a tourist, even in the
absence of Bermuda shorts and cameras, if se asks me the best way to get
into "Washington."
So if I were voting, I'd go with the locals. But this is a matter of
choice, not correctness.
Bob Lieblich
P&DSchultz
Robert Lieblich wrote:
>... I'd just like to point out that in my experience, most people who do not
> live in the place where the locals have a distinctive pronunciation for
> the name will adapt when they discover that they are out of step with
> the locals. If everyone around you in a particular Indiana town is
Well, my mother was from PEE-ru, Indiana, so of course that is an
exception. It is the only correct pronunciation.
//P. Schultz
D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff
No, because they founded the town. Thanks for correcting me on the ori-
ginal Arabic name. The point is, it's more than a little silly to say
that the pronunciation "[New] MA-drid" is incorrect when the supposed
"correct" pronunciation is itself a popular bastardisation of the town's
original proper. The lowly Missouri farmers are merely repeating a pro-
cess engaged in by lowly Castilian peasants a millenmium earlier; taking
them to task for their "mispronunciation" is like criticising the Spanish
for saying "Alhambra" instead of "al-Hamraah" or the Germans for saying
"Koblenz" instead of "Confluentes."
I at least hope that pedants who insist on "New MaDRID" despite knowing
better are consistent and speak of "To-LAY-dho", Ohio and "Loce A-hay-
lays", California.
D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff
In article <35367BC9...@austin.ibm.com>,
Because that's as close as most English-speakers can get to Czech
<r-hachek>.
D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff
In article <35340A29...@ameritech.net>,
Michelle <mich...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>Mr. C wrote:
>
>> Ever wonder why we do NOT pronounce a country's name the
>> same as
>> people native to that country?
>
>word to fit its own language type (though English takes in
>enough other foreign words).
[snip]
Though we modify them to suit our language as well. I wonder how many
native Italian speakers would recognise the common American pronunciations
of "latte" or "bruschetta" upon first hearing them.
The longer words have been in the language, the more changes they end up
being subjected to. So a longstanding borrowed place name like "Italy"
shows more modification than a recent borrowing like "Zimbabwe", just as
an early borrowing like "cheese" has changed considerably more than a
relative newcomer like "zucchini".
D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff
In article <199804161301...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
SLHinton17 <slhin...@aol.com> wrote:
[snip]
>But names of foreign places very rarely follow the pronunciation of the natives
>of those places, and the "correct" name is the one that is generally accepted.
>I once had some difficulty in sending a telegram (in English) from Monaco to
>Amsterdam, but at first could not remember the French word for Netherlands. The
>haughty clerks at the telegraph office were disdainfully unhelpful -- but I
>finally remembered "Pays Bas."
>That was the correct name in Monaco!
I have to disagree. Generally, only a few prominent places--countries,
some regions, major cities--have noticeably different names in a given
language. Everything else is called by the nearest approximation of the
local name in that language.
For instance, looking at the map of the "Pays-Bas" in my copy of the La-
rousse, I see that most of the provinces, several geographical features,
and a handful of the larger towns have forms peculiar to French. The vast
majority of proper names--villages, streams, bays, islands, etc.--are
referred to by the best approximation of the native name that the very
different phonology of French will allow. For every "Groningue", there is
an "Amsterdam", "Zwolle", "Rotterdam", "Leeuwarden", "Utrecht" and
"Breda." For every "Meuse", an "Ijssel", "Amstel", "Reitdiep" and
"Slinge".
It might be difficult to remember that "Pays-Bas" is the Netherlands on a
letter mailed from France, but you can almost bet that whatever name you
write before it is the one and only accepted "French" name of that town.
Donna Richoux
P&DSchultz <schu...@erols.com> wrote:
>
> They can be even dumber than that. Years ago, when something happened
> in Lake Orion, Michigan, important enough to make the national news
> (I forget what exactly happened), the residents were not only
> disappointed that Walter Cronkite didn't know how to say Lake OR-yon.
> No. It was more than that. They were shocked that he was so illiterate
> that he didn't even know that the proper pronunciation or Orion -- in
> ANY context -- is OR-yon! "What an ignoramus," they all thought.
Do I detect a wee bit of overstatement here? Is Lake Orion some
Brigadoon or Shangri-la, that none of the inhabitants have contact with
outsiders? No vistors, distant relatives, faraway employers and
suppliers, returned military veterans, travelling salesmen, etc, etc? My
bet it that far more than one of its inhabitants, even twenty years ago
when Cronkite was broadcasting (and as far as I know was respected
everywhere for his reliability), had had to cope with this difference in
pronunciation before, and knew that the outside world said it
differently.
Couldn't it have been more like this: somewhere you read or heard
someone who was in the vicinity report a remark like the one you
describe, and perhaps that reporting person heard no others that
directly contradicted it. That reporting person may have drawn certain
conclusions which they passed on, but these could not have had more than
the merest anecdotal basis. One possible alternative explanation: maybe
everyone in Lake Orion was smart enough not to contradict the dummy who
made the remark because they knew they would never hear the end of it.
Or something.
I am reminded of Lake Woebegon, where all the children are above
average...
Best --- Donna Richoux
Jim Douglass
Sometimes pronounciation changes for political reasons. In the United
States, Berlin, Connecticut before World
War II was Ber-LIN. Since the war it has been called BER-lin.
"Keen-ya" existed when controlled by the British, since their
independence, the name is "Ken-ya".
TheWo...@webtv.net
Interestingly, in an area with many Pennsylvania "Dutch", the town of
Germansville is said as "Gur", not "Jur".
Nearby New Tripoli, is "Trih-PO-lee, not like "the shores of Tripoli"".
The difference of YOO-gene or yoo-GENE, exists as some people
automically punch-up the first syllable. as in DEE-troit. Eugene is in
Oregon. Natives say Ora-gun. Most Americans think it's Ora-gahn. The
NBC Handbook of Pronounciation has a list of American towns and how they
are said
locally.
Skitt
Sean Holland wrote in message
<1998041618...@199-175-106-196.islandnet.com>...
> As for Cairo, Illinois, whenever I have read this name in a novel
or
>magazine I have heard KIGH-roh in my mind's ear. The actual
>pronunciation used by the residents is their affair. I have it filed
>under "trivia".
Just curious -- I wonder what your mind's ear hears about:
Kissimmee
Vallejo
La Jolla
Mojave
San Jose
Orlando
Pineda
--
Skitt http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/5537/
Eric The Read
P&DSchultz <schu...@erols.com> writes:
> You still do not understand, and are making the same errors. The
> correct pronunciation is whatever the overwhelming makority of
> speakers decide.
Yes, and the question is, which speakers are relevant? If I live in a
town, should I pronounce its name such that other people in that town
won't know where I'm talking about, or should I speak so that other
people can understand me? Why should I use a pronunciation that will
confuse and irritate others, simply so I can sit on my high horse and
disdainfully condemn all who misunderstand me as illiterate louts?
You sound rather arrogant here-- you seem to be claiming that people who
live in a place don't know how to pronounce the name of the place they
live in.
There is a distinction between the pronunciation of a word, and the
pronunciation of a name. There are many instances of people whose names
are spelled conventionally, but pronounced unconventionally; I knew
someone in college whose name was written "Jean", but pronounced "John".
Would you tell him he was pronouncing his name incorrectly? If not, then
why is the name of a person different from the name of a place?
> If the majority decides that "Madrid" is stressed on the final
> syllable, then the residents of New Madrid will have to get used to
> that.
The majority of whom? People who don't live in New Madrid? Why should
their opinions even be relevant? They don't live in the town, or likely
near it (otherwise they'd pronounce it correctly), so why should the
residents of New Madrid care a hill of beans what these outsiders think
they should say?
> They themselves can say whatever they like, but that doesn't make it
> correct.
On the contrary, they can say whatever they like, and that by definition
makes it correct. Other people can come in and try to correct them if
they like, but I wouldn't put large amounts of money on any locals being
convinced.
-=Eric
ptera_...@rocketmail.com
In article <3536B6...@erols.com>,
P&DSchultz <schu...@erols.com> wrote:
>
> Sean Holland wrote:
> > But it is equally wrong-headed for the people of that small town to
> > expect the world to know that Cairo is pronounced Kay-roh or whatever it
> > is. How is anyone else supposed to know how they pronounce a
> > concatenation of letters that has a much more famous variant? ...
>
> in Lake Orion, Michigan, important enough to make the national news
> (I forget what exactly happened), the residents were not only
> disappointed that Walter Cronkite didn't know how to say Lake OR-yon.
> No. It was more than that. They were shocked that he was so illiterate
> that he didn't even know that the proper pronunciation or Orion -- in
> ANY context -- is OR-yon! "What an ignoramus," they all thought.
>
Hahaha, those silly midwestern rubes! Don't they realize how stupid they are
to call their own town by the name they've always called it? A pity you
weren't there, Schultz, to set them straight. I'd have liked to see it.
Jeff Moag
P&DSchultz
D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff wrote:
>
> In article <3536AB...@erols.com>, P&DSchultz <schu...@erols.com> wrote:
> >D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff wrote:
> >> And you'd think the people of Spain, living as close to North Africa as
> >> they do, would know better and use the correct Arabic pronunciation of
> >> "Madrid" (i.e. [m@drit]) instead of the bastardised version they cling to.
> >
> >The Arabic pronunciation is not [m@drit]. It is "mah-DREED"--
> >virtually the same as the standard Castillian pronunciation that you
> >learned in high school Spanish (although the people who actually live
> >is Madrid mostly call it "mah-DHREE). The Moors originally called it
> >"Majrit," but that was probably a version of whatever it was called
> >before they got there.
>
> No, because they founded the town.
The Americans founded Chicago too, but the name was there already.
"Majrit" is not an Arabic word. It was probably the name of the hill,
or whatever.
> .. The point is, it's more than a little silly to say
> that the pronunciation "[New] MA-drid" is incorrect when the supposed
> "correct" pronunciation is itself a popular bastardisation of the town's
> original proper. The lowly Missouri farmers are merely repeating a pro-
> cess engaged in by lowly Castilian peasants a millenmium earlier; ...
You're mixing up foreign and native pronunciations. "Madrid" has a
standard pronunciation for English speakers, independent of its
pronunciation in other languages (which is not relative to the point).
It is that standard which the Anglophone residents of New Madrid, MO,
ignore at their own inconvenience.
//P. Schultz
P&DSchultz
Eric The Read wrote:
> ...
> Yes, and the question is, which speakers are relevant? If I live in a
> town, should I pronounce its name such that other people in that town
> won't know where I'm talking about, or should I speak so that other
> people can understand me? Why should I use a pronunciation that will
> confuse and irritate others, simply so I can sit on my high horse and
> disdainfully condemn all who misunderstand me as illiterate louts?
You should pronounce it the way the other locals do. Humor them.
> You sound rather arrogant here-- you seem to be claiming that people who
> live in a place don't know how to pronounce the name of the place they
> live in.
Do you really think there is never an instance of this? Don't you
think the original settlers of Lake Orion, MI, may have started
saying the word Orion incorrectly because they were *ignorant* of
its pronunciation? Their saying it wrong doesn't make it right.
> There is a distinction between the pronunciation of a word, and the
> pronunciation of a name.
Correct, but we're only talking about names.
> ..There are many instances of people whose names
> are spelled conventionally, but pronounced unconventionally;
Sure, but if you spell your name Jones and insist it be pronounced
"Smith," you're only making trouble for yourself.
>
> > If the majority decides that "Madrid" is stressed on the final
> > syllable, then the residents of New Madrid will have to get used to
> > that.
>
> The majority of whom?
Of the people who say "Madrid".
> People who don't live in New Madrid? Why should
> their opinions even be relevant?
Because they're the majority.
> They don't live in the town, or likely
> near it (otherwise they'd pronounce it correctly), so why should the
> residents of New Madrid care a hill of beans what these outsiders think
> they should say?
Never said they should. But they shouldn't complain when
outsiders don't conform to their quirks.
>
> > They themselves can say whatever they like, but that doesn't make it
> > correct.
>
> On the contrary, they can say whatever they like, and that by definition
> makes it correct.
No, it makes it a quaint local pronunciation.
> Other people can come in and try to correct them if
> they like, but I wouldn't put large amounts of money on any locals being
> convinced.
Me neither.
//P. Schultz
Eric The Read
P&DSchultz <schu...@erols.com> writes:
> You should pronounce it the way the other locals do. Humor them.
There you go again-- claiming that you know how to pronounce a name
better than the people who applied it. I'm amazed that you haven't
> > You sound rather arrogant here-- you seem to be claiming that people who
> > live in a place don't know how to pronounce the name of the place they
> > live in.
>
> Do you really think there is never an instance of this? Don't you
> think the original settlers of Lake Orion, MI, may have started
> saying the word Orion incorrectly because they were *ignorant* of
> its pronunciation? Their saying it wrong doesn't make it right.
I think it more likely that in the dialect the original settlers spoke,
it was pronounced that way. They weren't saying it wrong, because in
that dialect, it was correct. Why should you assume ignorance, when a
perfectly servicable explanation that doesn't involve it can apply?
> > There is a distinction between the pronunciation of a word, and the
> > pronunciation of a name.
>
> Correct, but we're only talking about names.
Exactly. And you're contending that the rules of words should be
applied-- i.e., majority rules. This is simply not the case with names,
be they names of places, or names of people. Established convention
holds that any given person can pronounce his name any way he pleases,
and it's no more "wrong" than any other way. Unusual, perhaps.
Unconventional, surely. But not wrong. In this case, the townspeople
are, in a sense, the owners of the name of their town, and thus have the
right to pronounce it any way they please.
> > ..There are many instances of people whose names
> > are spelled conventionally, but pronounced unconventionally;
>
> Sure, but if you spell your name Jones and insist it be pronounced
> "Smith," you're only making trouble for yourself.
This isn't that case at all. It's a matter of emphasis, or perhaps using
a long vowel sound where others might use a shorter one.
> > > If the majority decides that "Madrid" is stressed on the final
> > > syllable, then the residents of New Madrid will have to get used to
> > > that.
> >
> > The majority of whom?
>
> Of the people who say "Madrid".
"Madrid" != "New Madrid". They are different places. Just because one
place's name is pronounced one way has no bearing (other that providing a
general guide) in how another place with a similar name pronounces that.
In any event, a name is always pronounced the way whoever owns it wants
it pronounced, and there is no "wrong" or "right" about it. If you want
to pronounce it like the city in Spain, go ahead. But if anyone's wrong,
it's you.
> > People who don't live in New Madrid? Why should
> > their opinions even be relevant?
>
> Because they're the majority.
So? What does that have to do with anything? If the majority suddenly
decided my name should be pronounced "Eeris", they'd still be wrong.
> > They don't live in the town, or likely
> > near it (otherwise they'd pronounce it correctly), so why should the
> > residents of New Madrid care a hill of beans what these outsiders think
> > they should say?
>
> Never said they should. But they shouldn't complain when
> outsiders don't conform to their quirks.
Why not? If someone ignorant of German pronunciation conventions
pronounced your last name "Skultz", you'd have a right to complain, no?
It's the same situation.
> > On the contrary, they can say whatever they like, and that by definition
> > makes it correct.
>
> No, it makes it a quaint local pronunciation.
For a *LOCAL* place. Again, who are you to tell them they're doing it
wrong? It's not a word, it's a name, and eons of history have
established that names do not have One True Pronunciation(tm).
-=Eric
Eric The Read
"Eric The Read" <emsc...@mail.uccs.edu> writes:
> There you go again-- claiming that you know how to pronounce a name
> better than the people who applied it. I'm amazed that you haven't
I hate to follow up to my own posts, but that last incomplete sentence
was meant to be completely excised. Unfortunately, I posted before
proofreading one last time.
Mea Culpa,
-=Eric
H Gilmer
Sean Holland (seho...@garbageislandnet.com) wrote:
: > THERE. How they pronounce the same orthography elsewhere is irrelevant;
: > they're two distinct places.
: >
: But it is equally wrong-headed for the people of that small town to
: expect the world to know that Cairo is pronounced Kay-roh or whatever it
: is. How is anyone else supposed to know how they pronounce a
: concatenation of letters that has a much more famous variant? In Asia I
They shouldn't expect everyone to know in advance how to say it, and
if they do bitch and moan about how people should just *know* this,
then they're being silly. On the other hand, once the local
pronunciation is pointed out to outsiders, the outsiders should accept
the correction and adapt their pronunciation, rather than taking the
attitude of "fuck you, you stupid provincial twits, I know how to
pronounce your town name better than you do."
Whether the outsiders then retain the local pronunciation of this
place name when they return to their own communities is then another
question. I do say "Oregon" somewhat like "organ", and not ending
with "gone", even though I've never been there, because I've been
told by several Oregonians that that's how it's said. On the other
hand, if I say "Missoura" I feel like I sound affected, like I'm
faking it. So I don't.
Hg
Pan
>P&DSchultz <schu...@erols.com> wrote:
>>
>> They can be even dumber than that. Years ago, when something happened
>> in Lake Orion, Michigan, important enough to make the national news
>> (I forget what exactly happened), the residents were not only
>> disappointed that Walter Cronkite didn't know how to say Lake OR-yon.
>> No. It was more than that. They were shocked that he was so illiterate
>> that he didn't even know that the proper pronunciation or Orion -- in
>> ANY context -- is OR-yon! "What an ignoramus," they all thought.
>
Hmmm ... not sure where this thread has already trod, but no one in
my thirty-plus years of residence in Michigan pronounced Orion as
anything other than o-rI-on. Not even by those living in Lake Orion.
Pan
Geoff Butler
P&DSchultz <schu...@erols.com> writes:
>Eric The Read wrote:
>> You're still making the same error in assuming that there even exists a
>> "correct" pronunciation for a place name. The `correct' name for a place
>> (if such a thing can be said to exist) is whatever the people who live
>> there call it...
>
>correct pronunciation is whatever the overwhelming makority of
Who gets to vote towards this majority? English speakers? Natives? For
example, no vote could ever be in favour of Woolfardisworthy being
pronounced 'woolzry' (or is that the other one?) because the American
vote would always win.
As far as I can see, if the inhabitants of a place call it something
because it's been called that for a few hundres of years, and most other
people call it something else because it looks as if that's how it
should be, then both are justifiable and there are two acceptable
pronunciations, although the relative acceptability may vary depending
on context.
-ler
Sean Holland
Skitt <al...@myself.com> wrote:
>
> Just curious -- I wonder what your mind's ear hears about:
> Kissimmee
> Vallejo
> La Jolla
> Mojave
> San Jose
> Orlando
> Pineda
>
KISS-uh-me
Va-LAY-yoh
La-HOL-la
Mo-HAH-vay
San Hoe-ZAY
Or-LAN-doh
Pee-NYAY-duh
Some of those you hear uttered even in Canada. Some of them I have
never even read before. But they are all really beside the point. There
is a Cairo other than the one in Illinois or Missouri or wherever it is,
and that other Cairo is the more famous one, which is how my mind's ear
got its version of Cairo. Your offerings seem designed to elicit
demonstrations of my ignorance of Spanish pronunciation. However
profound that ignorance may be, it is immaterial to the discussion.
I have never heard of Kissimmee; my mind's ear has no preconceptions
on Kissimmee; my mind's atlas does not have Kissimmee in its index. My
mind's worry function is not alerted by any of these facts and remains
doggedly dormant in the face of them.
--
Sean
To e-mail me, take out the garbage.
Visualize whirled peas.
P&DSchultz
Geoff Butler wrote:
> Who gets to vote towards this majority? English speakers? Natives? For
> example, no vote could ever be in favour of Woolfardisworthy being
> pronounced 'woolzry' (or is that the other one?) because the American
> vote would always win.
I disagree. If the Americans knew that 'woolzry' was one of the
choices, I think they would go for it because it sounds cool.
> As far as I can see, if the inhabitants of a place call it something
> because it's been called that for a few hundres of years, and most other
> people call it something else because it looks as if that's how it
> should be, then both are justifiable and there are two acceptable
> pronunciations, although the relative acceptability may vary depending
> on context.
I agree. You should have heard my Seattle brother laugh when I tried
to say "Puyallup." But mostly we've been talking about locals using
an idiosyncratic pronunciation for a name that has an old standard
pronunciation.
//P. Schultz
P&DSchultz
Donna Richoux wrote:
>
> P&DSchultz <schu...@erols.com> wrote:
> >
> > They can be even dumber than that. Years ago, when something happened
> > in Lake Orion, Michigan, important enough to make the national news
> > (I forget what exactly happened), the residents were not only
> > disappointed that Walter Cronkite didn't know how to say Lake OR-yon.
> > No. It was more than that. They were shocked that he was so illiterate
> > that he didn't even know that the proper pronunciation or Orion -- in
> > ANY context -- is OR-yon! "What an ignoramus," they all thought.
>
> Brigadoon or Shangri-la, that none of the inhabitants have contact with
Well, yes. It was a LOT of overstatement, actually.
> Couldn't it have been more like this: somewhere you read or heard
> someone who was in the vicinity report a remark like the one you
> describe, and perhaps that reporting person heard no others that
> directly contradicted it....
It was in a Detroit newspaper about 30 years ago. The reporter was
having a bit of fun. I repeated it here as a caricature of local
pronunciations of placenames. Locals are generally aware of their
peculiar insider pronunciations and often exaggerate them as a kind
of in-joke.
//P. Schultz
Aaron J. Dinkin
In article <353dec26...@news.mindspring.com>, spam...@merriewood.com
wrote:
> On Fri, 17 Apr 1998 16:49:59 -0700, seho...@garbageislandnet.com
> (Sean Holland) wrote:
>
> >Skitt <al...@myself.com> wrote:
>
> >> Just curious -- I wonder what your mind's ear hears about:
>
> >> La Jolla
>
> > La-HOL-la
>
> La HOY-a.
In my mind's ear I hear /la 'dZAl@/, but if I were to actually pronounce it
I'd say /la 'hOI@/.
-Aaron J. Dinkin
Dr. Whom
J.F. Emery
----------
In article <3537AE...@erols.com>, P&DSchultz <schu...@erols.com> wrote:
>Their saying it wrong doesn't make it right.
Sure it does. Why not? Otherwise we'd all still be speaking like this:
Ne sorgu, snotor guma! Selre bith aeghwaem, that he his freond wrece,
thonne he fela murne!
Yuno Hu
----------
In article <adinkin-ya0231800...@news.nii.net>,
Once upon a time, in that very city of La Jolla, a late-model van pulled
alongside me as I awaited the changing of the light at the corner of La
Jolla Shores Drive and N. Torrey Pines Rd. The driver, in a foreign accent
(Italian, I think), asked me for directions to Ee-OH-lah /i 'o la/.
Ee-oh-la? I thought to myself, with a puzzled expression. "It's little
place by the ocean, with lots of shops and things, right around here" the
driver said. Ee-oh-la, Ee-oh-la, I thought to myself, maybe it's up in
Orange County, how would you spell it?--Eola?, Iola?, Iolla? UH!
enlightenment! Oh, you mean LA JOLLA!
Iskandar Baharuddin
Mr. C wrote:
> Ever wonder why we do NOT pronounce a country's name the same as
> people native to that country? For example, is Spain called Spain in
> Spain? (gosh, could I make a song up and include something about rain
> in it? :-) I think Italy is pronounced as Italia in Italy (ah ... or
> would that be in Italia :-) Any thoughts?
>
> --------------------------------------------
> PLEASE NOTE: To send me e-mail, please remove the capital
> letters from the address. Thanks.
This is a town in Australia. How would you pronounce it?
(Australians, native or migrant, at home or abroad, just sit back. Let's
see what they come up with first.)
--
Salaam & Shalom
Izzy
"Ciri sa-bumi, cara sa-desa" - Old Sundanese saying.
English translation: "People all over the world are basically about the
same, but the way they go about doing things depends upon the village they
come from."
P&DSchultz
But that was wrong! If it was right, it wouldn't have changed. But it
did change, and now it's right.
//P. Schultz
a1a5...@bc.sympatico.ca
> I have never heard of Kissimmee; my mind's ear has no preconceptions
>on Kissimmee; my mind's atlas does not have Kissimmee in its index. My
>mind's worry function is not alerted by any of these facts and remains
>doggedly dormant in the face of them.
>
Angelically spoken, if I may say so: but I have a question. Is one
being quick-SOT-ish or Ki-HOH-ta-ish in attempting to remain sane in a
world populated by MAY-dridders?
Robert Lieblich
Sean Holland wrote:
>
> Skitt <al...@myself.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > Just curious -- I wonder what your mind's ear hears about:
> > Vallejo
> > La Jolla
> > Mojave
> > San Jose
> > Orlando
> > Pineda
> >
> KISS-uh-me
> Va-LAY-yoh
> La-HOL-la
> Mo-HAH-vay
> San Hoe-ZAY
> Or-LAN-doh
> Pee-NYAY-duh
I don't claim to be an authority on any of these, but I think the first
and third are just plain wrong, and others miss slightly.
Kiss-SIM-me
Va-LAY-hoe
La-HOY-uh (others have already done this one)
Mo-HAH-vee
SAN-oh-ZAY (two accented syllables; heavier on ZAY)
Other two okay by me.
Philadelphia, anyone?
Baltimore, Maryland?
Bob Lieblich
D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff
Again, where does this ridiculous "MAY-drid" come from? It's all good fun
to take a piss at the yokels, but go too far and you end up looking more
iggernut than they ever could.
D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff
In article <t3wR9KA+...@gbutler.demon.co.uk>,
Geoff Butler <ge...@gbutler.demon.LoseThisBit.co.uk> wrote:
>P&DSchultz <schu...@erols.com> writes:
>>
>>You still do not understand, and are making the same errors. The
>>correct pronunciation is whatever the overwhelming makority of
>>speakers decide. If the majority decides that "Madrid" is stressed
>>on the final syllable, then the residents of New Madrid will have
>>to get used to that. They themselves can say whatever they like,
>>but that doesn't make it correct.
>
>example, no vote could ever be in favour of Woolfardisworthy being
>pronounced 'woolzry' (or is that the other one?) because the American
>vote would always win.
In matters of linguistic balloting, it seems to me that frequency of use
is most important. It doesn't matter in what proportions the general
populace would say "smooj" according to certain pronunciations when first
seeing it. As long as it remains in general use among a rather limited
community (AFAIK, me and my high school friends), what they say goes.
So it is with placenames. It doesn't matter how many travellers taking
Route 61 north of St. Louis say to themselves "Mos-cow" /'mAskaU/ when
they see the turnoff for Moscow Mills. As long as the people who use that
name a dozen times daily say "Mos-coe" /'mAskou/, that's what it's called.
If language were subject to *true* majority rule, a "light year" would be
a measure of time and even the Greeks would eat "jye-ros" /'dZaIrouz/.
Fortunately, it doesn't work that way.
>As far as I can see, if the inhabitants of a place call it something
>because it's been called that for a few hundres of years, and most other
>people call it something else because it looks as if that's how it
>should be, then both are justifiable and there are two acceptable
>pronunciations, although the relative acceptability may vary depending
>on context.
This goes double for cases when the natives themselves don't agree on a
single pronunciation, a situation I know all too well being from Missouri.
Now while I can't imagine saying "Mizurah" [mI'z@r@] except in jest, I
recognise that this is a legitimate, long-standing variant--like "rout"
/raUt/ for "route" /rut/--and don't make judgements about the "ignorance"
of speakers who use it. (Local politicians who use it because they think
it makes them sound more populist are a different matter...)
JNugent231
I obviously missed some of the strand, but I wonder how many share my view that
"Zimbabwe" should be pronounced "Roe-deez-ear" on the basis that "Deutschland"
is prounounced "Jer-min-ie"? :-)
Jesse the K
In article <6h19ei$hmb$1...@newsd-124.bryant.webtv.net>,
dougdo...@webtv.net (Jim Douglass) wrote:
> First noticed this on an NPR program which originates in
> Madison, When audience members identify where they hail from, it's
> always "Wis-gon-sin".
"Whad'Ya Know"[1] is indeed produced here, but it's distributed by PRI,
"the other public radio program service" Public Radio International. More
info at
http://www.notmuch.com
[1] Although Michael is a former English teacher, I do not think we can
blame him for this spelling of the show's name. I checked three times. I
can offer no explanation. To my continuing fury, "whaddya" and "gonna" and
"wanna" show up all the time in printed representations of speech,
particularly in closed captions.
ObAue: It's a.u.e., where nitpicking is obligatory! Yah, sure, hey!
--
Jesse the K - Madison Wisconsin USA
email copies appreciated to jesse (at) mailbag (dot) com
Aaron J. Dinkin
In article <3538A7...@erols.com>, Robert Lieblich <lieb...@erols.com> wrote:
> Philadelphia, anyone?
> Baltimore, Maryland?
/,fIl@'dElfi@/
/'bAlt@mOr 'mEr@l@nd/
Does anyone pronounce them differently than those (allowing for trivial
differences between dialects)?
P&DSchultz
Baltimoreans are famous for (and proud of) calling their town Ballmer.
I suppose that makes it the "correct" pronunciation. And non-American
Anglophones often pronounce Maryland with the normal pronunciation of
each of its two elements (i.e., with no schwas)
//P. Schultz
Sean Holland
Mimi <spam...@merriewood.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 17 Apr 1998 16:49:59 -0700, seho...@garbageislandnet.com
> (Sean Holland) wrote:
>
> >Skitt <al...@myself.com> wrote:
>
> >> Just curious -- I wonder what your mind's ear hears about:
>
> >> La Jolla
>
> > La-HOL-la
>
> La HOY-a.
That's interesting. I'll file it in my mind's "likely never to be
looked at again" file. But maybe that info will come in handy during
some trivia game. I thank you for it.
--
Sean
Visualize whirled peas.
a1a5...@bc.sympatico.ca
On Sat, 18 Apr 1998 17:00:44 GMT, de...@midway.uchicago.edu (D. Edward
Gund v. Brighoff) wrote:
>In article <3538a409...@news.bctel.ca>, <a1a5...@bc.sympatico.ca> wrote:
>>On Fri, 17 Apr 1998 16:49:59 -0700, seho...@garbageislandnet.com
>>(Sean Holland) wrote:
>>
>>> I have never heard of Kissimmee; my mind's ear has no preconceptions
>>>on Kissimmee; my mind's atlas does not have Kissimmee in its index. My
>>>mind's worry function is not alerted by any of these facts and remains
>>>doggedly dormant in the face of them.
>>>
>>Angelically spoken, if I may say so: but I have a question. Is one
>>being quick-SOT-ish or Ki-HOH-ta-ish in attempting to remain sane in a
>>world populated by MAY-dridders?
>
>Again, where does this ridiculous "MAY-drid" come from? It's all good fun
>to take a piss at the yokels, but go too far and you end up looking more
>iggernut than they ever could.
>
I haven't looked too closely, but I think it is Illinois -- you know,
where Lincoln came from.
As for the rest, answer the question.
Robert Lieblich
Tsk tsk, Clarence. The inhabitants of New Madrid pronounce the second
word in the name of their town "MAD-rid," not "MAY-drid." And the
adjective I believe you were reaching for is "kwik-SOT-ic," not "-ish."
Still, D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff (is that a person's name or the style
[technical term; look it up] of a lawsuit?) did come on a bit strong for
a relative newbie, which I assume helped raise your hackles. So a tsk
or two to him also.
Bob Lieblich
Michael C. Herman
a1a5...@bc.sympatico.ca wrote in message
<3538a409...@news.bctel.ca>...
>On Fri, 17 Apr 1998 16:49:59 -0700, seho...@garbageislandnet.com
>(Sean Holland) wrote:
>
>> I have never heard of Kissimmee; my mind's ear has no preconceptions
>>on Kissimmee; my mind's atlas does not have Kissimmee in its index. My
>>mind's worry function is not alerted by any of these facts and remains
>>doggedly dormant in the face of them.
>>
>Angelically spoken, if I may say so: but I have a question. Is one
>being quick-SOT-ish or Ki-HOH-ta-ish in attempting to remain sane in a
>world populated by MAY-dridders?
>
I don't know. I've heard both in the same conversation. I think the latter
is correct, but the former is the one I've heard the most. Those who use
the latter generally understand the former, but it doesn't always work the
other way around.
Magn0lia
Most members of my family say "BAL-mer" (or sometimes "the city"!), but
I accept that as a very localized pronunciation.
What challenge is there in pronouncing "Philadelphia"?
--
M a g n 0 l i a
<http://www.pedantic.com/>
"I'm still not sure whether or not there is a god, but I'm
finally starting to realize that, if there is, I'm not him."
Robert Lieblich
Magn0lia wrote:
>
> Robert Lieblich <lieb...@erols.com> wrote:
> > Philadelphia, anyone?
> > Baltimore, Maryland?
>
> Most members of my family say "BAL-mer" (or sometimes "the city"!), but
> I accept that as a very localized pronunciation.
Betcha even money they also say "MURR-lin" (just about like the
magician).
And if more than a million of the locals get by with about a syllable
and a half for the name of the city, what's the "correct" pronunciation?
> What challenge is there in pronouncing "Philadelphia"?
The challenge is to omit as many phonemes as do the natives. Try
"F@-LUFF-yuh."
Bob Lieblich
Aaron J. Dinkin
> Just curious -- I wonder what your mind's ear hears about:
> Kissimmee
/'kIs@mi/
> Vallejo
/v@'leho/
> La Jolla
/l@ 'dZAl@/
> Mojave
/mo'have/
> San Jose
/s&n ho'ze/
> Orlando
/Or'l&ndo/
> Pineda
/pI'ned@/ - but I don't recognize this one.
D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff
In article <kill-dashes-in-repl...@msn-7-10.binc.net>,
Jesse the K <jesse-@-mailbag-.-com> wrote:
>In article <6h19ei$hmb$1...@newsd-124.bryant.webtv.net>,
>dougdo...@webtv.net (Jim Douglass) wrote:
>
>> First noticed this on an NPR program which originates in
>> Madison, When audience members identify where they hail from, it's
>> always "Wis-gon-sin".
>
>"Whad'Ya Know"[1] is indeed produced here, but it's distributed by PRI,
>"the other public radio program service" Public Radio International. More
>info at
> http://www.notmuch.com
>
>[1] Although Michael is a former English teacher, I do not think we can
>blame him for this spelling of the show's name. I checked three times. I
>can offer no explanation. To my continuing fury, "whaddya" and "gonna" and
>"wanna" show up all the time in printed representations of speech,
>particularly in closed captions.
Howdya think these words should be spelled? Wudja prefer apostrophes to
show where letters've been dropped?
D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff
In article <1998041811...@199-175-107-18.islandnet.com>,
Sean Holland <seho...@unspam.islandnet.com> wrote:
>Mimi <spam...@merriewood.com> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 17 Apr 1998 16:49:59 -0700, seho...@garbageislandnet.com
>> (Sean Holland) wrote:
>>
>>
>> >> Just curious -- I wonder what your mind's ear hears about:
>>
>>
>> > La-HOL-la
>>
>> La HOY-a.
>
> That's interesting. I'll file it in my mind's "likely never to be
>looked at again" file. But maybe that info will come in handy during
>some trivia game. I thank you for it.
How knows? Maybe one day you'll meet a stunning blond from /la'hoj@/ and
you'll need this trivia fact when you try looking up their home number in
the phone book, only to find that "Lahoya" isn't listed anywhere.
P&DSchultz
Robert Lieblich wrote:
>
> a1a5...@bc.sympatico.ca wrote:
> >
> > On Sat, 18 Apr 1998 17:00:44 GMT, de...@midway.uchicago.edu (D. Edward
> > Gund v. Brighoff) wrote:
> > >Again, where does this ridiculous "MAY-drid" come from? It's all good fun
> > >to take a piss at the yokels, but go too far and you end up looking more
> > >iggernut than they ever could.
> > >
> > I haven't looked too closely, but I think it is Illinois -- you know,
> > where Lincoln came from.
> >
> > As for the rest, answer the question.
>
> Tsk tsk, Clarence. The inhabitants of New Madrid pronounce the second
> word in the name of their town "MAD-rid," not "MAY-drid."
The news reader I heard say MAY-drid was, I am now guessing,
reading from a phoneticized text intended to help her, but she
apparently went too far in her effort to sound as Missouryish
as possible. The text she saw may have looked something like
"... New Madrid ((MA-drid)), Missouri..."
//P. Schultz
D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff
In article <3538FD...@erols.com>,
Robert Lieblich <lieb...@erols.com> wrote:
>a1a5...@bc.sympatico.ca wrote:
L'angel Clarence a ecrit:
>> >>Angelically spoken, if I may say so: but I have a question. Is one
>> >>being quick-SOT-ish or Ki-HOH-ta-ish in attempting to remain sane in a
>> >>world populated by MAY-dridders?
>> >
>> >Again, where does this ridiculous "MAY-drid" come from? It's all good fun
>> >to take a piss at the yokels, but go too far and you end up looking more
>> >iggernut than they ever could.
>> >
>> I haven't looked too closely, but I think it is Illinois -- you know,
>> where Lincoln came from.
I must admit, I'm baffled as to which Lincoln you could be thinking of.
>> As for the rest, answer the question.
Neither.
>Tsk tsk, Clarence. The inhabitants of New Madrid pronounce the second
>word in the name of their town "MAD-rid," not "MAY-drid." And the
>adjective I believe you were reaching for is "kwik-SOT-ic," not "-ish."
>Still, D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff (is that a person's name or the style
>[technical term; look it up] of a lawsuit?) did come on a bit strong for
>a relative newbie, which I assume helped raise your hackles. So a tsk
>or two to him also.
I never thought there'd come a day when I'd be asked to (or care to)
defend my association with a.u.e, but I must ask: Six years isn't long
enough to shed newbie status? Or is there some minimum posting require-
ment I've been failing to meet? If so, I wish someone would send me
regular reminders to renew, like the ACLU.
(And in case you're actually curious, "v." is a standard abbreviation of
"von" in German names. I'd spell it out in full if that didn't run the
risk of making it simply too long.)
a1a5...@bc.sympatico.ca
On Sat, 18 Apr 1998 15:22:01 -0400, Robert Lieblich
<lieb...@erols.com> wrote:
>a1a5...@bc.sympatico.ca wrote:
>Tsk tsk, Clarence. The inhabitants of New Madrid pronounce the second
>word in the name of their town "MAD-rid," not "MAY-drid." And the
>adjective I believe you were reaching for is "kwik-SOT-ic," not "-ish."
>Still, D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff (is that a person's name or the style
>[technical term; look it up] of a lawsuit?) did come on a bit strong for
>a relative newbie, which I assume helped raise your hackles. So a tsk
>or two to him also.
>
A man's reach should exceed his grasp they say, but in this case the
-ish suffix, attached to wherever it sounds natural, is a common
alternative to the usual adjective, which for some reason you seem to
think I do not know, and denotes a modification of the meaning of
that common adjective. Why do I keep getting this feeling that you
are not a native speaker? Were your parents refugees?
Our Chicagoan contributor has reason to question your carping too, but
an understanding of German social structure is not mandatory anywhere
save Germany I suppose, and perhaps not even there these days.
a1a5...@bc.sympatico.ca
On Sat, 18 Apr 1998 23:05:47 GMT, de...@midway.uchicago.edu (D. Edward
Gund v. Brighoff) wrote:
>In article <3538FD...@erols.com>,
>Robert Lieblich <lieb...@erols.com> wrote:
>>a1a5...@bc.sympatico.ca wrote:
>
>L'angel Clarence a ecrit:
>>> >>Angelically spoken, if I may say so: but I have a question. Is one
>>> >>being quick-SOT-ish or Ki-HOH-ta-ish in attempting to remain sane in a
>>> >>world populated by MAY-dridders?
>>> >
>>> >Again, where does this ridiculous "MAY-drid" come from? It's all good fun
>>> >to take a piss at the yokels, but go too far and you end up looking more
>>> >iggernut than they ever could.
>>> >
>>> I haven't looked too closely, but I think it is Illinois -- you know,
>>> where Lincoln came from.
>
>I must admit, I'm baffled as to which Lincoln you could be thinking of.
>
>>> As for the rest, answer the question.
>
>Neither.
>
If you too are questioning the -ish tacked onto "Quixote" I'll alter
it to -ic or even -esque, but I doubt whether you are as daft as our
legal eagle. Ergo, you have some other pronunciation or you find
other means of touching on Quixotishness.
You may of course just be offended. <g>
H Gilmer
a1a5...@bc.sympatico.ca wrote:
: On Sat, 18 Apr 1998 15:22:01 -0400, Robert Lieblich
: <lieb...@erols.com> wrote:
: >adjective I believe you were reaching for is "kwik-SOT-ic," not "-ish."
: A man's reach should exceed his grasp they say, but in this case the
: -ish suffix, attached to wherever it sounds natural, is a common
: alternative to the usual adjective, which for some reason you seem to
: think I do not know, and denotes a modification of the meaning of
Quixote-ish is a productive formation from "Quixote". I can say
"Gilmerish", too. But are you suggesting that "quixotish" (lower
case, altered pronunciation of name, *not* immediate formation from
the name "Quixote") means "sort of quixotic"? Such a common
alternative to such a common adjective that I've never heard it in my
life. Can you come up with other examples of "-ic" adjectives that
can be changed to "-ish" adjectives? I'm trying this and the best I
can do is tack "-ish" onto the "-ic". Altanticish, with a hard c.
: that common adjective. Why do I keep getting this feeling that you
: are not a native speaker? Were your parents refugees?
A couple of months ago Person A suspected Person B of being a
non-native speaker, based on Person B's supposed Yiddish-like usage of
"already". I can't find this now in DejaNews. Were the characters in
fact you and Bob? If so, you were wrong then and you're wrong now.
If not, you're just wrong now and someone else was wrong then.
Hg
Lee Lester
You suggest this pronunciation of Kissimee - Kiss-SIM-me.
A lady from that city once told me it is pronounced that way by day but
changes to 'Kissee me' by night.
lee lester
Donna Richoux
D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff <de...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
> Robert Lieblich <lieb...@erols.com> wrote:
> >Still, D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff (is that a person's name or the style
> >[technical term; look it up] of a lawsuit?) did come on a bit strong for
> >a relative newbie, which I assume helped raise your hackles. So a tsk
> >or two to him also.
>
> I never thought there'd come a day when I'd be asked to (or care to)
> defend my association with a.u.e, but I must ask: Six years isn't long
> enough to shed newbie status? Or is there some minimum posting require-
> ment I've been failing to meet? If so, I wish someone would send me
> regular reminders to renew, like the ACLU.
>
> (And in case you're actually curious, "v." is a standard abbreviation of
> "von" in German names. I'd spell it out in full if that didn't run the
> risk of making it simply too long.)
Yes, Bob Lieblich is a lawyer, you see -- he was making a feeble joke:
he sees "v," he thinks "versus."
I'm surprised he didn't recognize your name as an old-timer. I did --
well, not the Edward Gund bit, only Daniel. Maybe it's just been too
long since we had a rousing good place-name thread.
Since that seems to be a special interest of yours, can you tell us --
*is* there any site on the Web that discusses placenames, toponymy, etc?
I haven't found much of anything.
Best wishes --- Donna Richoux
Jesse the K
In article <ErMsr...@midway.uchicago.edu>, de...@midway.uchicago.edu (D.
Edward Gund v. Brighoff) wrote:
> >[jesse-@-mailbag.com wrote...]
> >To my continuing fury, "whaddya" and "gonna" and
> >"wanna" show up all the time in printed representations of speech,
> >particularly in closed captions.
>
> Howdya think these words should be spelled? Wudja prefer apostrophes to
> show where letters've been dropped?
Frankly, I think they should be spelled correctly. The transformation of
"How do you" to "Howdya" is a function of speech. I don't understand why
"printed representations of speech" need to exist, especially in
captioning. "Eye dialect" is confusing: that's why there's an IPA. People
reading captions mainly don't *hear*, so a printed representation of the
spoken word is irrelevant, nu?
Of course I'll allow excellent writers (Mark Twain, Russell Hoban, Toni
Morrison came immediately to mind) to do what they wish. It's their genius
that makes these exceptions acceptable.
Robert Lieblich
D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff wrote:
<snip>
> I never thought there'd come a day when I'd be asked to (or care to)
> defend my association with a.u.e, but I must ask: Six years isn't long
> enough to shed newbie status? Or is there some minimum posting require-
> ment I've been failing to meet? If so, I wish someone would send me
> regular reminders to renew, like the ACLU.
Might as well eat crow for all the world to see. I don't know which of
my synapses blinked out at the crucial time, but if anything needs
renewing they do. Between the two of us, I'm the newbie. I apologize.
> (And in case you're actually curious, "v." is a standard abbreviation of
> "von" in German names. I'd spell it out in full if that didn't run the
> risk of making it simply too long.)
That I knew. I was just being a smart-ass.
Seconds on the crow, please.
Bob Lieblich
Robert Lieblich
a1a5...@bc.sympatico.ca wrote:
>
> On Sat, 18 Apr 1998 15:22:01 -0400, Robert Lieblich
> <lieb...@erols.com> wrote:
>
>
> >Tsk tsk, Clarence. The inhabitants of New Madrid pronounce the second
> >word in the name of their town "MAD-rid," not "MAY-drid." And the
> >[technical term; look it up] of a lawsuit?) did come on a bit strong for
> >a relative newbie, which I assume helped raise your hackles. So a tsk
> >or two to him also.
> >
> -ish suffix, attached to wherever it sounds natural, is a common
> alternative to the usual adjective, which for some reason you seem to
> think I do not know, and denotes a modification of the meaning of
> are not a native speaker? Were your parents refugees?
For the record, my father was born in New York, my mother in Strij,
Poland. She immigrated to the US at four. The first language for both
was Yiddish, but both spoke English like natives. Their parents, on the
other hand . . . but that's another story. Being "modern," they decided
not to teach Yiddish to my brother and me. They apologized many times
over the subsequent years for this dereliction
> Our Chicagoan contributor has reason to question your carping too, but
> an understanding of German social structure is not mandatory anywhere
> save Germany I suppose, and perhaps not even there these days.
As someone else points out elsewhere, "quixotic" is a standard English
adjective, pronounced with standard english phonemes. I knew that all
along, and that knowledge was what led me to question your choice of
"quixotish" or "Quixote-ish," or however you'd spell it, as an example
to challenge another's pronunciation.
My idiolect plainly differs from yours in many ways, some of which are
attributable to our differing residences and experiences, others of
which seem to be the result of carefully chosen attitudes. As long as
these differences lead to interesting discussions, that is all to the
good.
Bob Lieblich
D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff
In article <1d7qc61.co...@p117.asd.euronet.nl>,
Donna Richoux <tr...@euronet.nl> wrote:
>D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff <de...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>
>> Robert Lieblich <lieb...@erols.com> wrote:
>>
>> "von" in German names. I'd spell it out in full if that didn't run the
>> risk of making it simply too long.)
>
>he sees "v," he thinks "versus."
To be fair, it wasn't *that* feeble a joke. More impressively, it was one
I hadn't heard before, and that's a rare occurence when it comes to man's
name.
>I'm surprised he didn't recognize your name as an old-timer. I did --
>well, not the Edward Gund bit, only Daniel. Maybe it's just been too
>long since we had a rousing good place-name thread.
I added that bit last October, so maybe it's been longer than I thought
since I posted here.
>Since that seems to be a special interest of yours, can you tell us --
>*is* there any site on the Web that discusses placenames, toponymy, etc?
>I haven't found much of anything.
I know I've seen announcements for a couple on sci.lang, but I've a
terrible memory for URLs. The one I've been most impressed with is
"GeoNative" (on "geocities" if that helps), which lists geographical names
in multiple local languages. The editors are Basque so their collection
of Basque placenames in Spain and France is especially impressive, but
they also have such useful lists as recent post-Soviet name changes. They
welcome contributions, btw, so if there's something you don't see that
you'd like to, be sure to let them know.
What I'd *really* like is a good one-volume etymological dictionary of
place names, but the only decent one I've been able to find is almost a
century old.
a1a5...@bc.sympatico.ca
On 19 Apr 1998 04:16:30 GMT, gil...@uts.cc.utexas.edu (H Gilmer)
wrote:
>Quixote-ish is a productive formation from "Quixote". I can say
>"Gilmerish", too. But are you suggesting that "quixotish" (lower
>case, altered pronunciation of name, *not* immediate formation from
>the name "Quixote") means "sort of quixotic"? Such a common
>alternative to such a common adjective that I've never heard it in my
>life. Can you come up with other examples of "-ic" adjectives that
>can be changed to "-ish" adjectives? I'm trying this and the best I
>can do is tack "-ish" onto the "-ic". Altanticish, with a hard c.
>
Sometimes one does not have to make a modification and the word exists
already -- not Gilmer-ic, not Gilmer-ish (note how the stress alters),
bur foolish. A native speaker would never try for Atlanticish. As for
you never having heard of quixotish, you have now and it is English,
and is even a joke -- some people are good at jokes around here and
some are, well, given to pondering instead.
>: that common adjective. Why do I keep getting this feeling that you
>: are not a native speaker? Were your parents refugees?
>
>A couple of months ago Person A suspected Person B of being a
>non-native speaker, based on Person B's supposed Yiddish-like usage of
>"already". I can't find this now in DejaNews. Were the characters in
>fact you and Bob? If so, you were wrong then and you're wrong now.
>If not, you're just wrong now and someone else was wrong then.
>
You do not suppose I *keep* this stuff do you? However, native
speakers are just like everybody else -- they learn at mother's knee
and so did she. There are a lot of yiddischer kopfs around here and
sometimes it shows. Am I wrong to notice it? Take a look at the name
of the NG.
Eric C. Sanders D. D.
>J.F. Emery wrote:
>>
>> ----------
>> In article <3537AE...@erols.com>, P&DSchultz <schu...@erols.com> wrote:
>>
>> >Their saying it wrong doesn't make it right.
>> Sure it does. Why not? Otherwise we'd all still be speaking like this:
>> Ne sorgu, snotor guma! Selre bith aeghwaem, that he his freond wrece,
>> thonne he fela murne!
>
>But that was wrong! If it was right, it wouldn't have changed. But it
>did change, and now it's right.
>//P. Schultz
Oh, boy. Are you saying that languages change because someone
discovers or decides that this characteristic or that is "wrong"? Or
is the "Ne sorgu..." a famous quote whereof I am wofully ignernt? :]
What little I've read on the subject seems to suggest that languages
change by social interaction: Frenchmen and Germans try to trade in a
marketplace, grossly misunderstanding each other, until some sort of
pidjin can develop, whereupon that pidjin evolves into mutual
comprehensibility; meanwhile, the pidjin is helping the French
understand German and the Germans understand French.
Closer to home, all of the rough points and edges are getting
thoroughly poliched off English by all of the other people in the
world stumbling over them - not to mention the local folks with
limited educational resources trying to make their way in the world.
Soon enough, we're going to find ourselves with no distinctive endings
or spellings (is/are, mouse/mice) whatever - and I'll mourn the lovely
complexities that are gone. Their loss isn't necessarily wrong, though
- despite what the Academie Francaise and its fans believe.
------------------------------------------------------
"No matter where you go - there you are."
- Dr Buckaroo Banzai
Eric C. Sanders D. D.
>Just curious -- I wonder what your mind's ear hears about:
kih-SIM-mee
>Vallejo
vah-YAY-hoe
>La Jolla
lah HOY-yah
>Mojave
moh-HAH-vay
>San Jose
SAN-hoh-ZAY
>Orlando
or-LAN-doh
>Pineda
Hm, tough one - has the N a tilde?
If not: pih-NAY-duh
If so: pin-YAY-duh
>
>--
>Skitt
....but, then, I'm a bit of an arrogant counter-chauvinist about names
of foreign origin - an attitude I cheerfully conflicts with my other
attitudes about homogenization of language. So I have the foibles that
go with unfettered intellect; sue me. Bo)
Eric C. Sanders D. D.
>Sean Holland (seho...@garbageislandnet.com) wrote:
>
>: > THERE. How they pronounce the same orthography elsewhere is irrelevant;
>: > they're two distinct places.
>: >
>: But it is equally wrong-headed for the people of that small town to
>: expect the world to know that Cairo is pronounced Kay-roh or whatever it
>: is. How is anyone else supposed to know how they pronounce a
>: concatenation of letters that has a much more famous variant? In Asia I
>
>They shouldn't expect everyone to know in advance how to say it, and
>if they do bitch and moan about how people should just *know* this,
>then they're being silly. On the other hand, once the local
>pronunciation is pointed out to outsiders, the outsiders should accept
>the correction and adapt their pronunciation, rather than taking the
>attitude of "fuck you, you stupid provincial twits, I know how to
>pronounce your town name better than you do."
>
>Whether the outsiders then retain the local pronunciation of this
>place name when they return to their own communities is then another
>question. I do say "Oregon" somewhat like "organ", and not ending
>with "gone", even though I've never been there, because I've been
>told by several Oregonians that that's how it's said. On the other
>hand, if I say "Missoura" I feel like I sound affected, like I'm
>faking it. So I don't.
>
>Hg
God bless you, Sir, for a wise and tolerant and gentle diplomat. You
are an example of just how decent a human can be.
Donna Richoux
D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff <de...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
> Donna Richoux <tr...@euronet.nl> wrote:
> >Since that seems to be a special interest of yours, can you tell us --
> >*is* there any site on the Web that discusses placenames, toponymy, etc?
> >I haven't found much of anything.
>
> I know I've seen announcements for a couple on sci.lang, but I've a
> terrible memory for URLs. The one I've been most impressed with is
> "GeoNative" (on "geocities" if that helps), which lists geographical names
> in multiple local languages.
Thanks for the tip. I found "GeoNative" at
<http://www.geocities.com/Athens/9479/welcome.html>, and it does look
interesting.
> What I'd *really* like is a good one-volume etymological dictionary of
> place names, but the only decent one I've been able to find is almost a
> century old.
Last week I searched in amazon.com for books about placenames. One I
noted was this:
Placenames of the World : Origins and Meanings of the Names for over
5000 Natural Features, Countries, Capitals, Territories, Cities and
Historic sites. Adrian Room / Hardcover / Published 1997. $65.00.
Do you know about this book and dismiss it as not good, or do you not
know of it?
Best --- Donna Richoux
cosmo...@webtv.net
Natives drop the final "ee" sound and change it to an "uh".
cosmo...@webtv.net
Some Philadephians say Fuh-DELF-yuh
The town is Florida is Kiss-IM-ee
A team in Valparaiso, Indiana won an event. The coach made a point on
television, that their town was Val-puh-RAY-zoh. not Val-puh-RY-zoh, as
the network announcers had been saying.
Passaic, New Jersey is called Puh-sake and Newark is Nork, according to
locals.
Yet Newark in Delaware in pronounced as two words..New Ark.