Re: Rhys Ifans! Welsh fans, another pronunciation pop question

Roger Mills scripsit:

> OTOH, in one of the Harvard "humanities" courses I took, the professor
> consistently referred to [dAn 'kwIks@t] (Don Quixote).
Historically sound, actually:  Shelton, the 17th-century translator,
probably said that, and certainly until the 19th century it was the
standard in English.

> Perhaps the "I-wrack, I-ran" business is a symptom of that, since one
> hears it from e.g. congressmen (and those above them) who presumably
> ought to know better.
It is a convention in most legislative bodies in the U.S. that if
someone mispronounces a word, everyone else does so too, out of a kind
of courtesy.  Such pronunciations can then become fixed: in the NYC
court systems, we have the persistent pronunciations [di'fEn'd&nt] and
['dzUr\'Or\].

> Seems to me I've heard both [nAm] and [n&m] from vets; those who say the
> latter may perhaps be expressing a little more contempt/rage/what have you.
"Don't ask me, I don't give a damn / Next stop is ['vijEt'n&m]."
	--Country Joe and the Fish

> But I do
> recall an amusing lapsus in print somewhere at the time-- a notice to the
> effect that "transportation arrangements should be made with Pan Nam",
> otherwise known as Pan Am(erican) Airways, now alas extinct.
Thankfully extinct, IMHO.  And are you sure it was a lapsus and not a pun?

--
Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis vom dies!    John Cowan <cowan@...>
Schliesst euer Aug vor heiliger Schau,     http://www.reutershealth.com
Denn er genoss vom Honig-Tau,              http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Und trank die Milch vom Paradies.            -- Coleridge (tr. Politzer)

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