CHAT: barbarisms (was: CHAT: Being both theologically correct and

At 9:22 am -0600 14/5/01, dirk elzinga wrote:
>On Mon, 14 May 2001, BP Jonsson wrote:
>
>> At 08:22 2001-05-13 -0600, dirk elzinga wrote:
>>
>> >My surname is most often pronounced with stress on the
>> >penultima, [El.'ziN.g@] rather than with native Frisian initial
>> >syllable stress: ['El.ziN.Xa]. The English accentuation fits the
>> >"Latinate" pattern, but "Elzinga" is certainly not a name taken
>> >from Classical Antiquity.
Yes, but {z} is not found in native Latin words (or names) and, in any
case; the Latinate pronunciation never suggested itself to me for one born
in 20th cent. Utah  ;)

>> Which pronunciation do you use yourself?
>
>When I was in the Netherlands, I used the Frisian/Dutch
>pronunciation (of course!). Here, I use the Anglicized
>['El.'ziN.g@] since I find that people are too disconcerted to
>hear: 1) initial stress on a word of more than two syllables
>which ends in a vowel, and 2) the Dutch velar fricative.
You've confused me a little.  Ain't [X] the uvular fricative?  I thought
the velar fricative was [x].

>Some
>people do give the name initial stress ['El.ziN.g@], but the
>final vowel annoyingly often becomes a syllabic /r/ (!).
Interesting - I'd always thought of Elzinga as being stressed on the first
syllable; it never occurred to me to do otherwise (and I certainly don't
add any final /r/!  )

But, not realizing the name was originially Frisian, I'd never thought of
pronouncing the {g} as [X].  FWI I'd always 'mentally' pronounced it
['ElzIN@].  Guess I'd better start pronouncing that {g} - but is it [x] or
[X] I should use?  (I can't bring myself to use the penultimate stress)

Ray.

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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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