|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 2,661
Carpal Tunnel
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 2,661 |
Mom was born in Norway, arrived after WWII, and chose the spelling " Osa" for her first name. This was as close as she could get to mirror the actual pronunciation of the Norsk spelling " Asse" (the A has a circle over it), but even still misses the true sound. You can see why she changed it. 
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 86
journeyman
|
|
journeyman
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 86 |
I am (metaphorically, of course) standing, applauding vigourously, shouting "Bravo" to Shanks and "Amen" (for various reasons) to Max, CapK, and Jackie et al. We are all agreed on the respect that should be accorded names, in use, spelling and pronunciation. I'm with the others in never having heard the final "i" in "Gandhi" pronounced to rhyme w/ "tie". While, hitherto, I've had few occasions, for whatever reasons or deficiencies, to write or speak of "Gandhi", henceforth I shall be certain to do so properly, as per your helpful discourse (not,as others have mentioned as well, a "rant"). However, what I particularly wish to commend, Mr. Shanks, is your facility w/ words, your skill and talent in writing, your well-articulated reasoning and persuasive powers of argument ( as I have noted heretofore). Do dilettanti ever aspire to the Bar? You exhibit a number of the requisite skills, but your interests may lie elsewhere.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2000
Posts: 724
old hand
|
|
old hand
Joined: Jun 2000
Posts: 724 |
> My guess is that Avy might be a better candidate - I, sight unseen (or hearing
unlistened?) would ouch for the probably definitiveness of her pronunciation.
Oi Yaara! Your ouch is correct - my pronunciation is definitive with no "probably" in front of it, but ... I ain't got no recording gizmo. (Thank god says she who suffers from stage fright)
I too hate it when my (real) name is mispronounced. When pronounced the right way, I feel the way my name sounds - beautiful. And when pronounced wrong I feel the way it sounds - awful.
A close equivalent to the pronunciation of "DH" in Gandhi is the "th" in "the"
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409 |
ps. Gujarati, not Gujarathi, is the standard I use.
Thanks. I have always pronounced it as Gujarati, but spelled it with the "h" a hangover from my from my infatuation with German and its aspirated "t"s, I guess.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 163
member
|
|
member
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 163 |
Just a question. Several years ago, Peking was changed to Beijing for English speakers and writers at least. Could one of the issues be the desire to try to make the spelling close to how a native of the area would pronounce it regardless of the conventions of decades or centuries. Perhaps, not wanting to appear to Anglo-centric and not sensitive enough to the concerns of the locals. (In either case I think it is a bit silly. I doubt many French people resent that the Germans call la France das Frankreich or Austrians who mind that the English call their country Austria when they know it as das Osterreich.) Is it this sort of idea behind the new spelling cropping up of that famous person's name?
Now an annectdote, possibly apochryphal. A Canadian wrote to the OED people to complain that the listed pronunciation for Newfoundland was incorrect. The correct pronunciation sounds like "new-fund-land" (sorry, I don't know, or understand, all those fancy symbols used to show pronunciation) while the dictionary listed it as the equivalent of "new-FOUND-land". The editors' response was that in all cases they tried to show the pronunciation as a native would say it, and that was how a native of Oxford pronounced it.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773 |
Well put, Shanks.
Add me to the list of those with a name which people insist on mispronouncing. To exacerbate it, they then insist on altering the spelling to match the mispronunciation. That persistent problem is what prompted me to this year's April Fool's joke, which I mention under Dr Bill's Win a Million Dollars thread. I sent joke letters to the five members of the bar whose last name is spelled the way everyone insists mine is spelled.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,004
old hand
|
|
OP
old hand
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,004 |
Oh priye Ooops. It should have been vouch. I am too principled (yeah, right) to go back and edit, so will live with that blot on the 'scutcheon. As for the 'th' pronunciation - I think I said something like that in my initial post. The problem, in part, is that the Indian 'standard' pronunciation of 'the' is distinct from the British RP one. In India, if I remember rightly, it is pronounced like the 'th' in dal. But even that is surely different from the 'dh' in 'Radha  or Gandhi? cheer the sunshine warrior 'Radha kyon gori, mein kyon kaala?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,004
old hand
|
|
OP
old hand
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,004 |
Now who will bell the cat? Max? Jackie?
cheer
the sunshine warrior
"Echo answers: where?"
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,004
old hand
|
|
OP
old hand
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,004 |
Hey Rouspetur Just a question. Several years ago, Peking was changed to Beijing for English speakers and writers at least. Could one of the issues be the desire to try to make the spelling close to how a native of the area would pronounce it regardless of the conventions of decades or centuries. Perhaps, not wanting to appear to Anglo-centric and not sensitive enough to the concerns of the locals. (In either case I think it is a bit silly. I doubt many French people resent that the Germans call la France das Frankreich or Austrians who mind that the English call their country Austria when they know it as das Osterreich.)I suspect that there is a distinction between names always written in Roman (no matter what the language) and those which are only transcribed into it - from, say, Chinese or Hindi or Arabic. Certainly I would find it strange to call the basics of mathematics Al-jibr (al-muqabla), after the original Arabic phrase from which we get algebra, but that is quite distinct from a given name. Where names like Frankreich or Osterreich are used (or even the Netherlands, 'Dutch' or l'Angleterre) it is because there is primarily a convention of description in the related European languages - denoting the lands of the angles, the franks, and so on. So they are not different ways of spelling/pronouncing the same word - but rather descriptions in different languages of the same thing. With a name like Beijing, on the other hand, since Peking was an early (and rather flawed) attempt at rendering the sound in English, I suspect that if the Chinese themselves are certain that Beijing does it better, we can have no cause for argument - they are supposed to be the same word, after all. It is not like the seemingly endless changing of the names of Stalingrad-Petrograd and its ilk. Is it this sort of idea behind the new spelling cropping up of that famous person's name?To be honest, I don't the spelling is new. As far as I am aware Gandhi (who did take his law degree in London, and was fluently literate in English) always spelled his name this way. Now an annectdote, possibly apochryphal. A Canadian wrote to the OED people to complain that the listed pronunciation for Newfoundland was incorrect. The correct pronunciation sounds like "new-fund-land" (sorry, I don't know, or understand, all those fancy symbols used to show pronunciation) while the dictionary listed it as the equivalent of "new-FOUND-land". The editors' response was that in all cases they tried to show the pronunciation as a native would say it, and that was how a native of Oxford pronounced it.Excellent!  To be honest (and I don't know which dictionary I got this from), I have always pronounced it NEWf'ndl'nd (the ' representing the schwa). cheer the sunshine ("read my lips: s-u-n-s-h-i-n-e") warrior
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,004
old hand
|
|
OP
old hand
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,004 |
Dunno - but I can tell you that their mothers do on their behalf - or at least mine did. I managed to avoid that fate by sidling into that happy haven for dilettanti - the liberal arts. Stuffed full of Eng Lit, Philo, Psych, feeble attempts at Eco and Mathematical Analysis, no knowledge of Sanskrit, Japan or India (even though I took those opttions), I emerged about five years later (a few detours along the way), with a beer belly and some bad poetry to show for it. Those were the days my friends...  cheer the sunshine warrior "Nostalgia is the future"
|
|
|
|
Forums16
Topics13,913
Posts229,333
Members9,182
| |
Most Online3,341
Dec 9th, 2011
|
|
|
0 members (),
608
guests, and
2
robots. |
|
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
|
