[Ads-l] Cooking with the Kochs

[Geoffrey Nathan]

The infamous Koch brothers pronounce it to rhyme with 'coke'. I know this because I actually met the 'evil' David Koch many years ago and he is a friend of several friends of mine.


[small political comment: don't believe everything you read in the New Yorker, or elsewhere].


Geoff


Geoffrey S. Nathan
WSU Information Privacy Officer (Retired)
Emeritus Professor, Linguistics Program
http://blogs.wayne.edu/proftech/

geoffnathan at wayne.edu

Nobody at Wayne State will EVER ask you for your password. Never send it to anyone in an email, no matter how authentic the email looks.


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The only family I know with the name spelled K-o-c-h pronounces it Cook.

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Wikipedia:

=3DE2=3D80=3D9CThe Koch family (/=3DCB=3D88ko=3DCA=3D8Ak/ <https://en.wikip=
edia.org/wiki/=3D
Help:IPA/English>
KOKE <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Pronunciation_respelling_key>) =3D=
E2=3D
=3D80=3DA6=3DE2=3D80=3D9D

This pronunciation, [koUk], is the one that I use for this name,
irregardless of any contra-indicative evidence: Mayor Coke and not Mayor
Kotch. I=3DE2=3D80=3D99ve never so much as seen in person anyone even rumor=
ed to =3D
bear
this name. So, does anyone else really care? In the words of the living
legend, Noam Chomsky, =3DE2=3D80=3D9CI think not.=3DE2=3D80=3D9D

OTOH, according to the first article respecting the Koch brothers that I
read in the NYT, the relevant Koch family itself prefers the pronunciation,
=3DE2=3D80=3D9CCook.=3DE2=3D80=3D9D By complete coincidence, there were, in=
 post-war Sa=3D
int Louis, when
white folk still played ball, a couple of brothers - in the genetic sense -
Bob and Jerry, who were locally-famous as b-ballaz. They even attained some
level of all-America status. Their surname was also =3DE2=3D80=3D9CKoch,=3D=
E2=3D80=3D9D=3D
 pronounced
KOKE, as Wikipedia states. However, by further complete coincidence,
_these_ brothers Koch also said, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch,
that their surname was, in fact, properly pronounced =3DE2=3D80=3D9CCook.=
=3DE2=3D80=3D
=3D9D

Youneverknow.

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