[meteorite-list] Pronouncing Willamette and other meteorite names

[Michael L Blood]

"Loosers" eh?
        Well, I guess that settles that.
        Michael

on 4/23/08 8:16 AM, Darren Garrison at cynapse at charter.net wrote:


> On Wed, 23 Apr 2008 02:45:25 -0700, you wrote:

> 

>>        As for Allende, someone said there is nothing wrong

>> With "Anglicizing" a word....You would have a VERY

>> Difficult time living in So. CA - going to El Cajon (el ca hone)

>> And La Jolla (la hoy ya) etc. Even in LA, they pronounce

>> It "row DAY oh" Drive, not rodeo drive, as it was the Spanish

>> Name place originally.

> 

> You can pick and choose names that keep their original pronounciation if you

> want.  But you can also pick and choose names that have been Anglicized if you

> want.  The point is, if a word LOOKS like it follows the spelling of a

> "traditional" English word-- unless you have evidence otherwise-- you will

> usually try to pronounce it as if it were a "traditional" English word (and

> the

> same goes for non-English speakers, of course-- if the word LOOKS to fit the

> conventions of your languge, I'll bet that, with no instruction otherwise,

> you'll try to pronounce it according to the conventions of your language).

> Your

> examples "El Cajon" and "La Jolla" look obviously Spanish and not English.

> But

> "Allende" looks like a perfectly cromulent English word-- you have, Allentown,

> PA, for example, not Ayantown, PA.  So "Allende" just didn't trigger an alarm

> in

> my head to pronounce it differently-- I wasn't being contrary, it simply never

> occured to me.

> 

> MexicoDoug, try this little experiment while in the US-- write down the word

> "Allende" on a piece of paper.  Show it to every gringo you meet, ask them how

> to pronounce it.  Better yet, get the whitest looking guy you can find to ask

> for you.  I woud be shocked if anything more than a small minority of English

> speakers got it right.

> 

> Also, another issue, I've never heard the large majority of all meteorite

> names

> (and, indeed, possibly the majority of all techinical scientific terms,

> species

> names, etc that are well known to me) pronounced aloud.  Except for those who

> are professionals in the field and/or go to meteorite sales, I'd say that

> stands

> for most people who are hobbyists in obscure fields that are mostly accessed

> through books and the internet, without a local population of like-minded

> people

> to meet with.  Back to Williamette, the first (and only) time I have ever

> heard

> that word spoken aloud was in that film Darrly Pitt had someone put together--

> that guy was pronouncing it right, I thought he was a rube getting it wrong.

> 

> Meteorites can come from anywhere in the world-- which means that you are

> potentially faced with knowing the pronounciation rules/phonics for any

> language

> in the world-- does that assume that we should be assumed to know how all

> those

> other languages work when you just see the word in print?  (And I shudder to

> think of a meteorite named in a Khoisan or similar language that strays

> profoundly from Indo-European phonics-- "anyone have a partslice of

> clickpopgulp?")

> 

>>        The problem with "Anglicizing" a word is two fold:

>> 1) it assumes an ethnocentric approach to the word and

> 

> So what?  If you get rid of all the words that have been adopted into and

> modified to make English, you'll have-- well, I guess you'll have nothing,

> English is such a mongrel.  Would you rather have English more massively

> complicated with exceptions to spelling/pronounciation rules than the chaos

> that

> it already is?  I've been reading and writing English for all my life, and I

> still have to look up spellings of words (including in this post) because of

> the

> mess that English conventions are.  Pronouncing the names of all foreign

> cities

> and countries the same way the natives do in their language would take massive

> effort.

> 

>>        Anyway, of course, you can call your mother or father's sister

>> "ant" or "aunt" and people will understand.... But one is correct and

>> One is less so.

> 

> Right-- "ant" is correct.  Only losers pronounce the silent "u".

> 

> (Myself, I always wonder how the word "o-rang-utan" to most people is

> pronounced

> "arang-atang")

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