O'Kun

[Laurence Horn]

At 1:39 PM -0400 7/26/02, Mark A Mandel wrote:
>On Thu, 25 Jul 2002, Indigo Som wrote:
>
>#>This reminds me. Some years ago a New Yorker named Okun (name derives
>#>from Russian, where okun' designates the fish "perch") told me that
>#>despite being Jewish, he was contacted as a college freshman by the
>#>Catholic student group with an invitation to join. The letter was
>#>sent in good faith under the mistaken assumption that his name is
>#>Irish; it was addressed to him as O'Kun.
>#
>#My partner's last name is Ozawa, a reasonably common Japanese name. People
>#sometimes try O'Zawa on her. Weird!
>
>Ever since studying phonetics with John Ohala at Berkeley, I have
>fantasized about a firm with three partners, one Japanese, one Irish,
>and one Polish: Ohara, O'Hara, & Ohala.
>
You forgot the Hispanic partner, Ojala.  (His brother pitched for the
Mets and Red Sox.)

L