Pronouncing names; was Re: "Business takes Vi[z]a"

[Marc Velasco]

I can attest to this.  Someone from New York, purportedly named Lara
(possibly Laura), was not pronounced as Lara, Lora, Laura, Laira (nasally,
like lair...), or any other possible pronunciation I could come up with at
the time.  I don't even think I could hear the difference of what she was
talking and complaining about.  Slight chance this has something to do with
certain people being unable to learn and distinguish new sounds after
childhood.



On Sun, Aug 17, 2008 at 10:13 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Pronouncing names; was Re: "Business takes Vi[z]a"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> It's often the case that you can't tell how someone's name is
> pronounced without a scorecard. After I'd lived in the relative North
> long enough to lose control of my native East-Texas dialect, I went
> back Down Home, where I was amazed to discover that Collis spelled his
> name "Carlos." Later, in Los Angeles, I met another guy called
> "Collis." People kept asking me why I called him "Carlos." It turned
> out that his name really was "Collis"!
>
> A Saint Louis classmate called "Way-vell" spelled his name "Wavill."
>
> You never know.
>
> -Wilson
>
> On Sun, Aug 17, 2008 at 4:33 PM, Barbara Need <bhneed at gmail.com> wrote:
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> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Barbara Need <bhneed at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Pronouncing names; was Re: "Business takes Vi[z]a"
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > I certainly know an Aleesha (spelled Alicia). I have realized,
> > however, that I wouldn't know how to pronounce it unless the person
> > with that name told me! A-li-si-a sounds foreign to me. (I.e., not
> > English.)
> >
> > My sister (Laura) once complained that people on the Boston North
> > Shore could not pronounce her name properly. When I checked, she said
> > I did it right, and  I say Lora (or something like that. I don't know
> > what the pronunciation is that she objected to.
> >
> > Barbara
> >
> > Barbara Need
> > Chicago
> >
> > On 17 Aug 2008, at 14:04, Doug_Harris wrote:
> >
> >> 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
> >
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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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