[Ads-l] Can you say "Cossack"?

[Wilson Gray]

On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 6:31 PM, imwitty <imwitty at gmail.com> wrote:

> But I suspect that somebody related to that gang had connection to Russia
> and/or Ukraine, or at least somehow familiar with those countries and/or
> their history, or just the literature =E2=80=93 A. Pushkin, N. Gogol, M.
> Sholochow.
>

Somehow, I find it hard to believe that any familiarity  with Russian
history and/or literature in order to be familiar with the word, "Cossack."
Unless it really *is* the case that education in the United States has been
dumbed down in the United States, to the extent that much of what was once
common knowledge - that there are/were some bad motherfuckers called
"Cossacks" that a motorcycle gang would want to name itself after.

As for the pronunciation of the original name in Ukrainian and Russian,
that has little to do with the pronunciation of the anglicized version of
the name or its pronunciation by someone who has only read it and has never
heard it pronounced and, as a consequence, is unfamiliar with the
dictionary pronunciation.

Eddie Kazak, who once played third base with the St. Louis Cardinals, used
"KAY-zak" as his pronunciation.




-- 
-Wilson
-----
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

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org