Dons Quixote and Juan (was: Chile)

[Joel S. Berson]

At 10/8/2010 11:57 PM, Garson O'Toole wrote:
>Did you tell the teacher that his pronunciation of Quixote was quixotic?

No I didn't!  :-)  (BTW, it was a she.)  But even in 9th grade, I
wouldn't have seen a contradiction.  See the recent discussion of
Anglicization.  "Quixotic" is an (adopted, to be sure) English word;
"Quixote" is a Spanish name, and if the English (whether teachers or
citizens) pronounce it differently, I might conclude it was the way
he said his own name.

As I wrote earlier, it did sound odd, and perhaps even wrong, to me
at the time.  If I remember, it also sounded wrong to several of my
classmates.  But no one dared to question this more than minimally
always correct and rigid teacher.

Joel

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