Pontius "Pie Late"

[Wilson Gray]

I, too, assume "Pilatou," but I guess it depends on how a person wants
to transliterate Greek. Or maybe it's just a typo. Perhaps I'll go in
and change it.

-Wilson

On 4/7/07, James Harbeck <jharbeck at sympatico.ca> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       James Harbeck <jharbeck at SYMPATICO.CA>
> Subject:      Re: Pontius "Pie Late"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> >At 4/7/2007 10:52 AM, Jon L wrote:
> >>As I understand it, the exercise was created by a man whose surname
> >>was/ is pronounced in English as  / paI'lati /.  Not connected with Pontius.
> >
> >So in either case "Pilates" is incorrect? It should be either
> >"Pilate's" [exercises] (if he didn't spell his name with an "s") or
> >"Pilates'" (if he did)!  :-)
>
> Unless he intended any given exercise of the type to be eponymous:
> Oh, you're doing a Pilate. That's a Pilate too. They're all Pilates!
>
> Except that the inventor was Joseph Pilates. The s is part of the
> name. He was born in Germany of a Greek father, whose name was
> originally Pilatou or Pilatu (I would assume the former, but
> Wikipedia has the latter, and I can't be bothered to dig further for
> better info just now), but he changed it to Pilates in Germany. So
> the original pronunciation would be [pilatEs] or [pilat at s].
>
> So it's one of those false plurals, like kudos or (for the Canadians
> here) Mr. Goudas (a line of canned goods that include Caribbean and
> other items that few other brands sell, and at good prices; the
> founder's name is Goudas), and it's eponymous, like Bikram Yoga.
>
> Joseph Pilates lived 1880 to 1967. His stuff is a craze now, but it's
> been around for a while.
>
> Ciao,
> James Harbeck.
>
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