TN: A Jeebus for Jonathan (June 4, 2009)

originally posted by MLipton:
originally posted by SFJoe:

btw, it's spelled "Hwang" in this case. A somewhat similar case to my own family name, I suppose, with many spellings. Though I reckon the small Donegal clan is a bit outnumbered.
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And then there's the issue of pronunciation with your surname. Witness the variant exhibited by your 5th cousin thrice removed on the distaff side Dennis at that upstart institute in SoCal.

Mark Lipton (n Lipstein n Lipski n ???)

Ellis Island makes aliens of us all
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Ah, his is the highly characteristic Pennsylvania pronunciation. A long way from Tipperary.
 
originally posted by SFJoe:

Ah, his is the highly characteristic Pennsylvania pronunciation. A long way from Tipperary.
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Ah, so. Good info. Since I was raised around the CA clan, I never encountered that variation until him.

Mark Lipton
 
People in Pennsylvania are much more dour than people in California.

Actually, on the east coast, I am sometimes hailed as Ms. [synonym-for-genuflection]-man.
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
People in Pennsylvania are much more dour than people in California.
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As a Californian who just celebrated his 20th anniversary with a Pennsylvanian (thanks for the wishes BTW) I shall refrain from comment.

Dourly yours,
Mark Lipton

p.s. Mispronouncing your family name is just plain weird.
 
Maybe those people are just into boating.

(And thank you for not opening the can of worms regarding the fact that some people pronounce the word "dour" door.)
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
Maybe those people are just into boating.

(And thank you for not opening the can of worms regarding the fact that some people pronounce the word "dour" door.)
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More as in rhymning with boor. And I'm one of those boors. Is there another way to pronounce it?
 
Wait, does "door" not rhyme with "boor" in your world?

In my way of talking, "dour" rhymes with "hour."

ETA: Hmm! From dictionary.com:

Usage Note: The word dour, which is etymologically related to duress and endure, traditionally rhymes with tour. The variant pronunciation that rhymes with sour is, however, widely used and must be considered acceptable. In a recent survey, 65 percent of the Usage Panel preferred the traditional pronunciation, and 33 percent preferred the variant.
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
Wait, does "door" not rhyme with "boor" in your world?

In my way of talking, "dour" rhymes with "hour."

ETA: Hmm! From dictionary.com:

Usage Note: The word dour, which is etymologically related to duress and endure, traditionally rhymes with tour. The variant pronunciation that rhymes with sour is, however, widely used and must be considered acceptable. In a recent survey, 65 percent of the Usage Panel preferred the traditional pronunciation, and 33 percent preferred the variant.
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That's baffling to me. I've never even heard it pronounced in the supposed traditional way. But then I grew up playing "Duck, Duck, Grey Duck."
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
I live with a proofreader. It rhymes with "tour". End of discussion.
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Your proofreader might be upset by your non-standard quotation mark usage. (Whimsical emoticon here.)

I'm a dour and sour guy myself--according to my family anyway--but then again I'm one generation off a Carolina dirt farm and I've never met anyone who wasn't a college professor who made dour sound like tour.
 
I almost wish I were. He sounds like the kind of cousin I could have used. My relatives have always tended to push Bible verses or deep-fried foods, not sweet Mary Jane.
 
I know that my quotation-and-period handling is not Chicago standard. It's one of my endearing quirks.

(Are you a Lord of the Rings fan? How do you pronounce "Sauron"? I was very surprised to hear a recording of Tolkien's pronunciation.)
 
It is endearing. I used to do some editing, but I'm actually not very good at it. The quotation mark thing seems to be one of my remaining little editing tics. I think it bugs my students.

At the junior high I went to, the entire seventh-grade English class was spent reading LOTR--including a good number of days listening to LPs of Tolkien reading. It was a strange year. I had completely forgotten about this, but I think he pronounced it Sour-ron, with a big rolled "R," but I've always said Saw-ron. That seems wrong suddenly.

Wow. And here we are in this thread at Middle Earth with cuddin' Kenny the pot dealer.
 
Not to, um, be a geek, but that pronunciation follows from the rest of that particular invented language.
 
To the extent that I thought about it--I doubt I ever said the name out loud--I guess I pronounced it saw ron. Sour-on makes sense semantically if not, in English, orthographically. I'm not sure how to follow Thor's remark. In which of the Middle Earth languages did they pronounce "au" as "ow"? Surely elves wouldn't even make such a sound, as Henry Higgins would say.
 
Well that would be Quenya, I suppose. (Honestly, I had to look it up. Had to check, you know? No, really.)

Thor, I don't think anyone is implying that we'd pronounce dour like Tolkien pronounced Sauron.
 
Ya, Quenyan. Sauron translates to abhorred if I recall correctly so I wonder if that is what Melkor called him as they were hanging out in Angband. And in Sindarin, he is Gorthaur .
 
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