You Say Soto-My-YOR, I Say Soda-Meyer
Let’s call the whole thing off.
Krikorian at The Corner on the “Sotomayor” pronunciation thing notes that Obama went American on it after his initial NPR-like effort at PC ethnophonics, settling on something like “Soda-meyer.” I thought it was a good move. No Grey Poupon on your linguistic burger, dude. Krikorian, who himself endures the constant Yank mispronunciation of his own Armenian name amicably, hits the right balance in his post between observing correct ethnic pronunciation and being forced to make sounds that are unnatural in (American) English: Be polite and pronounce it the way the bearer chooses, unless they are asking you to do something … unnatural.
Sotomayor should just be happy her parents didn’t emigrate to Australia. Or the UK, for that matter. I’m guessing on my ancestral islands, it would come off more like “Sodom-ayuh.” Though in Oz, maybe more like “Sodom-oye-yuh.”
The whole thing reminds me of an SNL skit from the 90s that starts with a newscaster bending over backward to pronounce Nicaragua “Nee-ca-rah-(g)hwa,” heavily aspirated the way NPR’s Maria Hinojosa (Mar-EEE-ah Een-oh-HHHOS-ah) would do it, and working through a series of news items mentioning various foreign capitals with increasing multicultural hilarity before going into full Charlie Chan mode on “Hong Kong.”
Today, speaking of NPR, I heard former Reaganista Kenneth Duberstein* trying to be PC on Sotomayor’s name in an interview, but he kept pronouncing it “Sotomay-aire,” as if she were of French extraction. Which reminds me a little of what happened to my Huguenot forebears when they showed up in Tudor England. The maternal side’s “Mussared” isn’t too bad, though I’ve encountered some Huguenot names that got a thorough working over by the Poms, like “Moomaw” and “Shumway.” Fortunately, with a good old Anglo-Saxon last name like “Crittenden,” all I have to deal is people calling me “Christianson” and “Cry-ten-den” and “Crit-uh-dun” and “Crittington.” Pretty much all the time.
* I’m pretty sure they were pronouncing that “Duber-steen,” though the correct Germanic pronunciation would be “stine.” Make that “Schtein!”
As for Soto-mah-YOR, I’m an American. It’s Soduh-myer. And apparently that makes me a bad right-wing ideologue. Per Benen at Washington Monthly (lefty whose name I’m not entirely sure how to pronounce and who works for a frikkin monthly, so who cares … what century is that guy in, anyway? And I thought daily newspapers were dated. Ben-En … Bee-nen … B’nun … Binin … I give up. Get another consonant, Benen. I’ve got plenty, I’ll sell you one.)
Topics: America, free speech, gaffes, language
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:39 pm Comments (6) on Wednesday, May 27, 2009
6 Responses to “You Say Soto-My-YOR, I Say Soda-Meyer”
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May 28th, 2009 at 9:08 am
Wonder how that guy at Washington Monthly feels about misspelling someone’s name? Spelling is easily discernible and has an objective right or wrong, yet he can’t be bothered to spell Steyn correctly.
May 28th, 2009 at 9:55 am
I’m just surprised that the Senate hasn’t offered to hold her confirmation hearings in Spanish.
Sigh.
May 28th, 2009 at 11:47 am
I’ve been pronouncing it Soto-My-YOR, but then I grew up in a part of the country where Spanish is widely spoken. Most likely, how you pronounce it will depend on your region. My real, secret name for her is Sonia Socialista.
May 28th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
[...] on “hispanics,” “Latinos,” and pesky C-As Jules Crittenden: Souter With A Salsa Beat? and You Say Soto-My-YOR, I Say Soda-Meyer NewsMax.com: Sotomayor Hostile to Gun Rights, Scholar Says Greg Gutfeld, Big Hollywood: Daily Gut: [...]
June 1st, 2009 at 8:27 pm
[...] in their tall-corn Midwestern drones only to pop out a perfect sophomore Spanish 102 “soe-toe-my-YORRR“ in mid-twang, before turning to the weather in [...]
July 2nd, 2009 at 3:46 pm
[...] on Video (Sotomayor’s Outrageous Comments) Jules Crittenden: Souter With A Salsa Beat? and You Say Soto-My-YOR, I Say Soda-Meyer Leigh Scott, Big Hollywood: The Wisdom of the White Male First Things – The Anchoress: Sotomayor [...]