last laugh on awe-dropping

Tue Feb 10 00:01:05 UTC 2009

On Sun, 8 Feb 2009 07:04:02 Zulu minus 0800 I wrote:

"I checked the written transcript of Flight 1549 talking with New York
TRACON (Terminal Radar Approach Control).  There were only a few words
with "awe".  One, repeated several times, was "LaGuardia", which is most
often pronounced /l@ 'gwawr dee @/.  This is odd, since it is an Italian
name which Fiorella pronounced I don't know how but his ancestors
pronounced /lah gwahr dee ah/."

The double-schwa pronunciation was from MWCD10.  I personally don't care how people pronounce such a naturalized name, but personally it looks so Romance that I am more likely to say /lah/ than /l@/.

As to the spelling, all I looked at in the MWCD10 entry was the pronunciation.  In the transcript the airport was written as "laguardia" which is probably why I spelled it without spaces.

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another "aught":  The only person named "Daughtery" that I've met pronounces her name /'dahk @r tee/.

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on "Naomi":  the Hebrew original is /n* o mee/, with asterisk being a vowel which in Ashkenazic Hebrew is /aw/ and in Sephardic Hebrew, depending on who you ask, is either /ah/ or /@/.  There is no /y/ sound between the first two syllables.

If Tom Zurinskas ever moves to Israel, the last syllable of his surname will most likely be spelled with that vowel, so hopefully he can enjoy being /zur in skaws/.

           James A. Landau
           test engineer
           Northrop-Grumman Information Technology
           8025 Black Horse Pike, Suite 300
           West Atlantic City NJ 08232 USA
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XAKNP JSESM QATXT UMZOP YJKRH JPEQV FQRPU AUAXL
PHFRQ LATRP PLO
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