Poet's names.
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Rodney is changing the pronunciation of his name.
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I've always pronounced "Roethke" as "RET-key." Others?
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John Koethe pronounces his last name like the girl's name often spelled "Katie."
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Nobody ever had a problem pronouncing my name growing up, so I got upset when other people mispronounced by maternal grandmother's name (and the name of all her children, save my mother--whose maiden name was "Jaurique" which I still don't know how to pronounce, but my mom says "HOAR-uh--GHEE"), "Gamez."
Gamez is a rare name, much less common than "Gomez." It is pronounced thusly, "GAH-muhss" (where the "uh" is my weak attempt at reproducing a vowel that is approximately a half-length schwa). It is not pronounced GAH-MEZ (spondee), or (this is the worst) guh-MEZZ (iamb). It is a trochee. The "Z" in Spanish is like an "S."
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8 comments:
RUT-key.
I actually pronounce the "th" so it's "ruth-key" rhymes with "butt-key". Hmm, I feel a poem coming on. . .
"Schiavo."
How many different ways do you think I've heard that pronounced, including the mangled way people pronounce the surname of my mustachioed doppelganger down in Florida?
Not really a half-length schwa. What it really is, to be pedantic, is the sound of ey in "hey" but minus the glide at the end that makes the ee sound in tree.
Juarique is pronounced by several of my students with that name as:
HUH-ri-ghee
From my seventh floor office window in Milwaukee I can see "Katie" walking out of the philosophy building as I write this. (he teaches at this university) (and actually it's raining and there is no one outside)
--Dustin
Justin,
You have "several" students name Jaurique? Where do you teach? I've only met one person in my life (Mom) named Jaurique.
Jonathan,
Of course you're right, though most of my peeps, as the kids say, really do pronounce the 'e' in their name more like a short schwa.
I second RET-Key, as someone who grew up in Roethke's home town where there is a Roethke flower shop and a Roethke Park and of course the landmark of Roethke's childhood home.
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