I’ve been spending too much time with philosophers lately.
Me: Whatcha doing?
8 y.o.: Taking apart Sophists’ weapons.
I was briefly thrilled.
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51 comments
January 5, 2009 at 9:49 am
Vance
Wow, another word I’ve been pronouncing wrong all these years. I’ll probably still be weeding these out of my lexicon when I’m eighty (and no doubt the habit of chatting online rather than in person has slowed the weeding).
January 5, 2009 at 9:56 am
grackle
I knew a lady once who claimed her grandfather had been named after a name seen in a book. He was called So-crates, as in sew, and in crates of vegetables.
January 5, 2009 at 10:16 am
Charlieford
“Pop” Staples of the Staples Singers real name was Roebuck. His next-older brother was named Sears. Apparently he was the 14th child, and the family had run out of names by then. Or so says Mavis.
January 5, 2009 at 10:31 am
Vance
The most embarrassing revelation that my reading was ahead of my hearing came when it was my turn to read a passage from Hamlet out loud in high school English, and I mispronounced “whore”.
January 5, 2009 at 11:23 am
N. Merrill
I used to read the name “Irene” as sounding a lot like “irony.”
January 5, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Russell Belding
I used to think that Bob Die-lan, that guy who wrote all those songs for Peter, Paul & Mary, was a pretty clever fellow.
January 5, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Jason B.
When I was in high school, I once read one of my short stories in front of my creative writing class. I was comfortable with the meaning of the word “brazier,” but didn’t realize until it was halfway out of my mouth that it probably wasn’t pronounced “brassiere.”
Ah, well. At least it was full of burning coals.
January 5, 2009 at 12:31 pm
dana
I still proofread talks and presentations to make sure there aren’t any words or names that I can’t say.
January 5, 2009 at 12:34 pm
rea
Awfully sawfisticated, for an 8-year-old . . .
January 5, 2009 at 12:46 pm
urbino
When reading — aloud or just aloud in my head — I mispronounce “dingy” every damn time.
I still proofread talks and presentations to make sure there aren’t any words or names that I can’t say.
If I did that with names, I’d never be able to give a talk. There are way too many ambiguously pronounceable names I’ve only ever read, not heard. (And never seen the proper pronunciation given. This is one of my pet peeves in biographical dictionaries and the like, up to and including Wikipedia; they almost never provide pronunciation guides for names. It’s always struck me as, well, a shibboleth for the learned.)
January 5, 2009 at 12:49 pm
rosmar
I was in a graduate school seminar, very heated about something or other, and I said, “It is just so eh-saw-tur-ic!” My professor and classmates looked at each other, mumbling ‘eh-saw-tur-ic, eh-saw-tur-ic…” until someone said, “Oh, you mean esoteric!”
(I’m not good at rendering words phonetically, but I hope you get the point. It was embarrassing. Even more embarrassing than the time my professor asked me if I was making an ontological or an existential argument, and I had to admit I had no idea.)
January 5, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Vance
I still proofread talks and presentations to make sure there aren’t any words or names that I can’t say.
This doesn’t help with words you say wrong — I would have blithely read “sophist” like “Sophie”, confirming myself in error.
January 5, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Vance
Now they’ll tell me “Sophie” rhymes with coffee.
January 5, 2009 at 1:13 pm
Linkmeister
When I saw the word mis-led, unhyphenated, I’d give it a long i sound, thus myzled. I don’t know when I finally figured out I was wrong.
January 5, 2009 at 1:29 pm
Dr J
In my first year in my current job I gave a lecture on cultural changes in the 1920s-era US while being evaluated by a senior colleague.
I pronounced mores as if it rhymed with “fours” about, oh, sixteen times in the course of the lecture. My senior colleague sidled up to me afterward and whispered, “I think it’s pronounced ‘mor-ays.’” He was kind enough not to include that in his written report.
For the life of me, up until then I thought that kind of more was spelled moray.
January 5, 2009 at 1:37 pm
eric
I thought that kind of more was spelled moray.
When an eel bites your hand ’cause it smells just like lamb, that’s a moray.
January 5, 2009 at 1:38 pm
washerdreyer
Off-topic, non-pronunciation related historical question for Eric, or anyone else who wants to take a crack:
In a fictional world where a new (or heavily renovated) train station opened in New Orleans in 1918 and the (re)opening of this train station was an important event (at least locally), does it make any sense that Teddy Roosevelt would have attended? That is, given the sorts of things Teddy Roosevelt was doing in the real world in 1918, is a train station opening in New Orleans the sort of thing he might have attended?
A recent film (let’s call it The Curious Case of Benjamin B., to avoid revealing too much (this isn’t actually a spoiler at all)) has Roosevelt doing so, which struck me as the movie’s writer not giving his choice enough thought (which he’s guilty of throughout the movie), and instead just picking someone audiences would be familiar with, and I’m wondering if I’m right to make that criticism.
January 5, 2009 at 1:59 pm
andrew
It’s always struck me as, well, a shibboleth for the learned.
Learned rhymes with burned, as in:
“Papa Homer, you are so learn-ed.”
“‘Learnd’, son. It’s pronounced `learnd’.”
January 5, 2009 at 2:30 pm
TF Smith
Wasn’t TR mourning Quentin in 1918?
January 5, 2009 at 2:55 pm
jazzbumpa
Taking apart sophists’ weapons would mean exposing their lies – which is disabuse.
Taking apart Saw Fists’ weapons would mean anthropomorphic disassembly – which is abuse.
Either way, the victim is dis-armed.
January 5, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Dr J
“When an eel bites your hand ’cause it smells just like lamb, that’s a moray.”
I hate you.
January 5, 2009 at 3:13 pm
urbino
“Papa Homer, you are so learn-ed.”
“‘Learnd’, son. It’s pronounced `learnd’.”
I love you, too, Pepsi.
January 5, 2009 at 3:13 pm
urbino
Learned rhymes with burned
Unless it’s the name of a judge.
January 5, 2009 at 3:35 pm
jazzbumpa
That takes if full circle, Hand being so fist’ry.
January 5, 2009 at 3:38 pm
urbino
A friend sends me this link on ambiguously pronounceable names:
http://www.themillionsblog.com/2006/08/hard-to-pronounce-literary-names-redux.html
January 5, 2009 at 3:55 pm
andrew
I still have problems saying Trollope, after reading a novel of his before knowing I had the pronunciation wrong the whole time.
January 5, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Josh
When an eel bites your hand ’cause it smells just like lamb, that’s a moray.
Okay, where is this from? I’d only ever heard “When an eel bites your heel/pain you’ll feel/then you’ll squeal/that’s a moray!” before. Google isn’t much help (although I find it amusing that the first hit for “‘when an eel’ ‘that’s a moray’” is Democratic Underground).
January 5, 2009 at 5:28 pm
Bitchphd
Social “mores” is pronounced “more-ays”?
January 5, 2009 at 5:37 pm
Vance
Yes, but how do you pronounce “ays”?
B, you should really be plugging your blog about now.
January 5, 2009 at 6:05 pm
Charlieford
TR died early in 1919. Checking Wiki . . . hmm, is this question a joke? He just happened to die on Jan. 6, 1919. He was still getting around in 1918, but was shattered by the death of his son in WWI. A train station he might have been at. New Orlinians, however, were probably not among his biggest fans? You know, the Booker T. thing and all that? Maybe?
January 5, 2009 at 7:22 pm
Vance
Wikipedia also claims he was a contender for the 1920 Republican nomination. So a certain degree of stumping seems within the bounds of plausibility.
January 5, 2009 at 9:15 pm
ben
When a fist hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s a melee.
January 5, 2009 at 10:39 pm
urbino
Do eels eat lamb? Seems unlikely.
January 5, 2009 at 10:42 pm
washerdreyer
I checked wikipedia myself before asking, which led me to conclude it wasn’t completely impossible, but didn’t tell me much else. I’m not totally pawning off my idle questions, just mostly.
January 5, 2009 at 11:17 pm
ari
What train station? New Orleans doesn’t have a grand passenger terminal, if you’re looking for more ammunition to fire at lazy script writers.
January 5, 2009 at 11:17 pm
ben
Yes, but how do you pronounce “ays”?
Like the name of the baseball team. You can hear it here.
January 5, 2009 at 11:20 pm
ben
I hadn’t noticed this before: in the sentence “immo vero etiam in senatum venit, fit publici consilii particeps, notat et designat oculis ad caedem unum quemque nostrum.”, the entirety of “vero” is elided! (I hadn’t know that elision would occur with that initial “v”, too.) It’s pronounced “immetiam”, which is exactly the way it would be pronounced if “vero” weren’t there at all. Weird.
January 6, 2009 at 8:34 am
Jackmormon
Learned rhymes with burned
Unless it’s the name of a judge.
Wait, really? Shit.
January 6, 2009 at 8:46 am
ari
Which part? Burned? Or Justice Hand?
January 6, 2009 at 8:51 am
dana
ben, that is strange! I also think that “o tempora, o mores!” was delivered less with a tone of “shame, shame” and more with a tone of “honestly, senators — what the FUCK?”
January 6, 2009 at 8:58 am
Vance
He pronounces “mores” with an unvoiced “s” — “more ace” rather than “more A’s”.
January 6, 2009 at 10:28 am
Jackmormon
I have always pronounced “learned” as “learn-ed.”
January 6, 2009 at 10:29 am
washerdreyer
Do eels eat lamb? Seems unlikely.
Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey.
An eellley dlam too, wooden shoe?
What train station? New Orleans doesn’t have a grand passenger terminal, if you’re looking for more ammunition to fire at lazy script writers.
Sure, but that train station existing is obviously a change between the real world and the fictional world in a different way than TR being the kind of person who would show up at a locally important train station opening in 1918 is.
I also find the plot point in which an American flagged tugboat operating out of Murmansk is conscripted into the USN on 12/8/41 unlikely, but I don’t know I’m not sure if it’s meant to be fantastic or not.
January 6, 2009 at 10:39 am
ben wolfson
more with a tone of “honestly, senators — what the FUCK?”
Given what immediately follows (“the senate knows it, the consul sees it, and he yet lives”) and the list of illustrative historical examples that follows only a little bit later, this seems plausible.
January 6, 2009 at 10:47 am
Vance
JM, you’re right — except for the participle of learn. “I have learnd that Judge Learn-ed Hand was learn-ed.”
January 6, 2009 at 10:51 am
dana
exactly, ben. (“He lives!”)
January 6, 2009 at 11:07 am
Jackmormon
In my insecurity I may have missed a joke up there.
January 6, 2009 at 1:00 pm
jazzbumpa
“Nihilne te nocturnum praesidium Palati,”
Never do pilates in the Praesiduim at night?
January 6, 2009 at 2:12 pm
dana
Yoga, however, is acceptable.
January 6, 2009 at 2:14 pm
urbino
Which part? Burned? Or Justice Hand?
Judge Hand, history boy.
January 6, 2009 at 2:18 pm
andrew
JM, listen to Vance, and not to Papa Homer.