Who is Rosetta Stone?

[Laurence Horn]

At 9:46 PM -0500 1/22/06, Wilson Gray wrote:
>Larry, I agree with you that "RoSETta Stone" is contrastive. But, I
>also agree with Paul's intuition that it is also the proper intonation
>pattern.
>
>-Wilson

I also say "Plymouth ROCK", so it's not just poor Rosetta I'm
slighting.  I think it's that these are more like "Fifth AVenue" or
"Raglan ROAD" than like "Forty-SECond Street", in that neither stones
nor rocks are semantically empty or unmarked enough to warrant the
stress retraction.

Larry

>
>
>On 1/22/06, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>-----------------------
>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>>  Subject:      Re: Who is Rosetta Stone?
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>  >?There is a radio commercial for a language learning program called
>>  >"Rosetta Stone".  The enthusiastic radio announcer pronounces the
>>  >program like the name of a person, "RoSETta STONE", not like the
>>  >name of a famous archaeological artifact, the "RoSETta stone".  I
>>  >just saw a television commercial for the same product.  This time,
>>  >the announcer pronounces the term correctly as "RoSETta stone",
>>  >but the two or three satisfied customers who refer to the product by
>>  >name intone it like the personal name "RoSETta STONE", as does
>>  >another announcer at the end who tells the viewer how to buy the
>>  >product.  I wonder whether this commercial, on radio and television,
>>  >is increasing the proportion of Americans who think that Rosetta
>>  >Stone is a person.
>>  >
>>  >In checking the Buffalo telephone directory, I find there are five
>>  >people named "R Stone", none of whom will spell out her first name.
>>  >Hey, an idea:  The next time linguists hold a convention, offer free
>>  >admission or some other goody to anyone who can produce I.D. as
>>  >Rosetta Stone.
>>  >
>>  >-- Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY)
>>  >
>>  >P.S.  According to the Wikipedia article
>>  >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Stone,
>>  >the Rosetta Stone acquired its name because it was found near the
>>  >Egyptian port city
>>  >of Rosetta (present-day Rashid).
>>  >
>>  Actually, I've always pronounced it (the artifact, not the language
>>  learning program) "the Rosetta STONE".  Maybe it's just me.  ("The
>>  RoSETta Stone" strikes me as contrastive.)
>>
>>  Larry
>>
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