Pronunciation of "Ngaio"

[Laurence Horn]

At 10:32 PM -0400 5/9/09, Mark Mandel wrote:
>I wouldn't count on sports announcers to manage an initial velar nasal if
>their jobs depended on it ... or on their employers to insist. OTOH, I
>wouldn't count on WP authors to have checked the individual's own use.
>There's no reference in the article for *his* pronunciation of the name, or
>discussion of the question:
>
>*Dat Tan Nguyen* (pronounced ...) [IPA deleted]
>
>If I had to guess, I'd say that someone just put in the (a?) Vietnamese
>pronunciation, quite impersonally (so to speak).

Not *the*, if only because no tones are provided; and I'd put my
money on your guess--while he was playing, his attitude was probably
"I don't care how you pronounce my name, as long as you credit me for
the tackle", and now that he's a coach, who knows.  But Scotty the
WSOP belt-holder is definitely "Win".  He probably figures he's
capitalizing on the homophony.

LH

>
>m a m
>
>On Sat, May 9, 2009 at 7:53 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:
>
>>
>>  Yes, I remember Scotty Nguyen (with the
>>  pronunciation you note) from WSOPs past.  There's
>>  also a Dallas Cowboys linebacker and now coach
>>  named Dat Nguyen from Vietnam (although he grew
>>  up in Texas).  According to the wiki site for him
>  > at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dat_Nguyen the
>>  name is pronounced Vietnamese style with initial
>>  velar nasal (note the IPA transcription at the
>>  beginning), but I seem to recall that was not the
>>  standard practice by announcers when he was
>>  playing.  Another web site suggests "[win]",
>>  which I suspect is intended to represent [wIn] as
>>  in Scotty.  Kudos to wikipedia for the old
>>  college try, though.
>>
>>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org