Özil's magic left foot -- or was it Oezil's ?

[David A. Daniel]

>the pronunciation I have heard (from what seem to
>be quite-well-informed-on-the-challenges British
>play-by-play announcers)

Whoa! Hold 'er there, Newt! The absolute worst pronouncers of foreign names
on the planet are the Brits (except for maybe the Japanese)! If a Brit
announcer said it one way, you can bet the ranch it's pronounced another.
DAD


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-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
Joel S. Berson
Sent: Thursday, June 24, 2010 2:04 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Özil's magic left foot -- or was it Oezil's ?

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---

The New York Times spells German soccer player
Mesut Özil's name with a dieresis.  The
font-deficient Boston Globe and/or Associated
Press spell his last name Oezil.  So do they
think the language of this player of (I assume)
Turkish origin uses umlaut?  (Not an entirely
serious question and requiring no answer.)

The pronunciation I have heard (from what seem to
be quite-well-informed-on-the-challenges British
play-by-play announcers) is OH-zihl, but that's
not the German O-umlaut pronunciation. (Which I'm
finding a bit difficult to form as an initial
vowel.)  How is the Turkish Ö pronounced?

Joel

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