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Linguists out there
- Thread starter MarkS
- Start date
Jeff Grossman
Jeff Grossman
IANAL but it is my experience with language that the provenance of most proper nouns is obscure and quirky in the extreme. My policy is to learn to spell it and to say it and to ask no further questions.
evan hansen
Evan Hansen
I'm not a linguist, but I can dust off my old English degree well enough to know it's just a pretty standard case of a mispronunciation becoming a second correct pronunciation. Koch is Germanic, and would generally have a shorter "o" vowel sound in German but is otherwise pretty much "Coke."
In German, Koch would generally have a vowel similar to "law" on the above chart, and in the US it gets elongated just a bit so it's "Coke."
The "Kotch" version is just English speakers turning "ch" from Germany into "ch" like "cherry," which we do all the time when referencing languages where the ch sound is closer to a "k" (e.g., bruschetta, maraschino). As I recall, this is a kind of minor influence of French, where an old English hard c got softened to a French-style "ch" like "Champagne." But I could be mistaken.
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In German, Koch would generally have a vowel similar to "law" on the above chart, and in the US it gets elongated just a bit so it's "Coke."
The "Kotch" version is just English speakers turning "ch" from Germany into "ch" like "cherry," which we do all the time when referencing languages where the ch sound is closer to a "k" (e.g., bruschetta, maraschino). As I recall, this is a kind of minor influence of French, where an old English hard c got softened to a French-style "ch" like "Champagne." But I could be mistaken.
Sharon Bowman
Sharon Bowman
Wait... I say "brusketta" but "marasheeno."
Cole Kendall
Cole Kendall
It took me a while to fully get comfortable with pistakio.
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
Wait... I say "brusketta" but "marasheeno."
'Course it is mar-ah-skee-no. Interestingly Italians use the term for the distillate of sour cherries, not the cherries themselves (which are generally referred to as amarene)
originally posted by MarkS:
Linguists out thereLet us start the new year on an academic footing.
Why is "Koch Brothers" pronounced like "Coke" whereas the former hizzoner Koch is pronounced as "Kotch"?
Don't forget the founder of the Boston Brewing Company, Jim Koch, who pronounces his name like "Cook." Just FTR, how many pronunciations of your last name have you heard, Mark? Lipton is rather hard to mangle, but my wife's long, Polish surname gets all sorts of treatments. And the way her family says the name bears scant resemblance to how it's pronounced in Poland.
Mark Lipton
Sharon Bowman
Sharon Bowman
Dressner used to pronounce my last name as though it started with the bow of a ship.
Michael Lewis
Michael Lewis
No one ever mispronounces my last name, but people often misspell it.
...Just FTR, how many pronunciations of your last name have you heard, Mark?
How many stars are there in the Universe?!
Jeff Grossman
Jeff Grossman
Amarena and marasca cherries are different cultivars.originally posted by mark e:
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
Wait... I say "brusketta" but "marasheeno."
'Course it is mar-ah-skee-no. Interestingly Italians use the term for the distillate of sour cherries, not the cherries themselves (which are generally referred to as amarene)
originally posted by Cole Kendall:
It took me a while to fully get comfortable with pistakio.
Cole ftw.
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
Amarena and marasca cherries are different cultivars.)originally posted by mark e:
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
Wait... I say "brusketta" but "marasheeno."
'Course it is mar-ah-skee-no. Interestingly Italians use the term for the distillate of sour cherries, not the cherries themselves (which are generally referred to as amarene)
Uh, no. Not if you are referring to Italian usage, which I was. Amarene includes all cultivars. It is like saying "pear." Marasca is a variety.
Jeff Grossman
Jeff Grossman
Amarena is also a variety; it grows in different places than Marasca.
Amarene is an Italian word. It looks like the plural of Amarena but if you say otherwise, that's fine by me.
Amarene is an Italian word. It looks like the plural of Amarena but if you say otherwise, that's fine by me.
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
Amarena is also a variety; it grows in different places than Marasca.
Amarene is an Italian word. It looks like the plural of Amarena but if you say otherwise, that's fine by me.
It is the plural. I'd never heard of it being of a variety. Morello and Montmorency are the most common varieties - and in Piemonte there were often unnamed varieties. In any case, that's what Italians use as the generic term for sour cherries.
kirk wallace
kirk wallace
One of the great jurists and legal chroniclers of the Anglo-American tradition is Lord Coke. Pronounced Cook. And he lived at the end of the great vowel shift. So, I'll go with what Jeff and Evan said (but let's leave Italian & French for another day).
robert ames
robert ames
moving along in american. . . .as opposed to the english.
valdez [alaska] is pronouced valdeez (long e) because that is what the locals say it is. linguists are not part of the equation.
more to the point--there are proper nouns that are pronounced a certain way for no other reason than because that is the way they are pronounced.
couch street in portland[ia], oregon is pronounced cooch. as in hoochy-cooch. why ask why--try bud dry.
valdez [alaska] is pronouced valdeez (long e) because that is what the locals say it is. linguists are not part of the equation.
more to the point--there are proper nouns that are pronounced a certain way for no other reason than because that is the way they are pronounced.
couch street in portland[ia], oregon is pronounced cooch. as in hoochy-cooch. why ask why--try bud dry.
kirk wallace
kirk wallace
hewston, TX, howston street, NYC. (Each named after different Mr. Houstons.)
And then there's Cairo,IL, Versailles, OH etc.
And then there's Cairo,IL, Versailles, OH etc.
Cole Kendall
Cole Kendall
My [least] favorite such example is "Goethe" Street in Chicago (3 syllables in the local patois).
Jonathan Loesberg
Jonathan Loesberg
Useless brownie points for people who know the proper pronunciation of Whewell, a 19th century theologian and philosopher. And the pronunciation of the first name of St. John Rivers, from Jane Eyre.
kirk wallace
kirk wallace
That one really amazed me when i first encountered it. Being 22, I thought i was having my gullibility tested.originally posted by Cole Kendall:
My [least] favorite such example is "Goethe" Street in Chicago (3 syllables in the local patois).