http://arnoldzwicky.wordpress.com/2012/10/15/pronouncing-names/ A blog mostly about language Fri, 24 May 2013 00:07:20 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ http://arnoldzwicky.wordpress.com/2012/10/15/pronouncing-names/#comment-39152 Tue, 16 Oct 2012 17:19:49 +0000 http://arnoldzwicky.wordpress.com/?p=12091#comment-39152 Several years ago now a friend and I were driving to Tahoe from Seattle. We spent a night in Eugene and another in a small town in California whose name I can’t remember, at a B&B. When we came in the host said, “Are you the folks from Hawaii?” and I said, “No, we came from Oregon.” Another guest laughed and said “Not with that pronunciation you didn’t.”

]]> http://arnoldzwicky.wordpress.com/2012/10/15/pronouncing-names/#comment-39083 Mon, 15 Oct 2012 20:11:01 +0000 http://arnoldzwicky.wordpress.com/?p=12091#comment-39083 NPR’s Julie McCarthy, reporting from Pakistan, has been heard to mix the /ae/ and /a/ pronunciations for the last syllable of that nation’s name and Afghanistan’s within the same paragraph. Natives seem to agree on the /ae/.
It’s nice to note that President Obama has been pretty consistent in pronouncing Taliban (/i/ /ae/) as do speakers in countries where that ‘gang of too many’ is extant.

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