"Business takes Vi[z]a"

[Wilson Gray]

Doug H. writes:

"I've heard Alicia pronounced as if it were Aleesha."

Uh, there's a way of pronouncing this name *other* than as Aleesha?!
You don't say so! To paraphrase Huey "Piano" Smith, "If it is, if it
is, well, I'll be John Brown!" In the words of Johnny Carson, "I did
not know that."

-Wilson

On Sun, Aug 17, 2008 at 3:04 PM, Doug_Harris <cats22 at stny.rr.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Doug_Harris <cats22 at STNY.RR.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "Business takes Vi[z]a"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I was (and remain) under the impression that parents
> are largely responsible, in the beginning, anyway, for
> how their kids' names are pronounced. Regardless of
> class or other considerations, parents may and do decide
> a Lisa should be a Leeza or a Leesa (or is that LIza and
> LIsa?), or Andrea, AnDREA-ah or even an AHN-dre-ah. And
> I've heard Alicia pronounced as if it were Aleesha --
> similar to the Marcia / Marsha pronunciation.
> With most such names, the pronouncer has a 50/50 chance
> of getting it right. With many other names, namely some
> of those that most often are attached to blacks, even
> after having _heard_ it pronounced, it's not hard to
> imagine the name-giver got an unfortunate assortment of
> letters in his or her alphabet soup bowl.
> dh
>
> At 12:31 PM -0400 8/17/08, Wilson Gray wrote:
>>"Visa" as pronounced by their current voice-over guy. I'd been
>>beginning to fear that I would never hear the correct, i.e. the one
>>that I use, pronunciation, again. BTW, what's up with these
>>mirror-image pronunciations?
>>
>>My wife and probably millions of other Easterners says Vi[s]a,
>>Eli[s]e, Li[s]a, We[z]ley, but Le[s]ley, etc., whereas I say, with
>>many millions of non-Easterners, Vi[z]a, Eli[z]e, Li[z]a, We[s]ley,
>>but Le[z]ley, etc.
>>
>>-Wilson
>
> I'm not sure these pattern as a class.  They certainly do for me.
> For this Easterner, it is indeed [viz@] (for both the credit card and
> the document) but Eli[s]e, [lis@] (or [layz@], a depending on whether
> we're talking about "Lisa" or "Liza"), We[z]ley (and We[z]leyan), and
> Le[z]ley/Le[z]lie.
>
> LH
>
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All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Mark Twain

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