Cyberspace has certainly reduced the margin for error …
Colloquialisms used to take a long time to integrate into a local vernacular. For example, the Americans drove the British out of the colonies in 1789, but based on the personal letters exchanged between the two countries that have been noted by historians, it took until the 1830s before comments were made noting a clear difference. in the accents between them.
Local dialects will always be a fixture in geographic cultures. However, as more and more of us traverse cyberspace and the real world, basic pronunciations are becoming a problem.
I realized this again in the sports world when a national broadcast featured NCAA basketball newcomers Gonzaga University from Spokane, Washington. The locals insist that the name be stated as ‘Gon-ZAEG-ah’, but inevitably, sportscasters elsewhere will refer to ‘Gon-ZAHG-uh’ until the locals correct it.
However, the name Gonzaga has been a part of Italian history since the 1300s, and anyone who has studied it or been exposed to it from that much deeper context knows that the correct pronunciation is ‘Gon-ZAHG-uh’. Ludovico Gonzaga not only established his family’s dynasty over the Italian state of Mantua in 1328, but his family became a cultural and military force in that area for the better part of five centuries.
You will even notice that the University of Spokane has an extension program in Italy and still strongly maintains its preference for colloquial pronunciation. Trust me, in Europe, it’s called ‘Gon-ZAHG-uh’. However, students on the Spokane campus, from Bing Crosby to John Stockton, learned to refer to their alma mater as ‘Gon-ZAEG-ah’.
This raises the age-old question of proper pronunciation tag, of course. Do we opt for the traditional and truthful version of a proper name if we know it or for colloquial preferences that, for some reason, have become established in a certain field?
Another classic example is Our Lady. The correct French, of course, is ‘Noht-ruh Dahm’. Use the Americanized version anywhere else in the world at the risk of being punished like a seed of hay. And yet the South Bend, Indiana-based Jesuit university obviously prefers the local pronunciation.
Product universalization addresses the same problem. For example, the German beer ‘Löwenbräu’ is pronounced ‘LUH-come-broy’ everywhere except in English-speaking countries and the Swedish furniture store, IKEA, is universally said as ‘ee-KAY-uh’. Try to pronounce them the right way and you are likely to come across a blank stare or look at you like a snob. But what has he done except say the name accurately?
Of course, in commercialism, it is the bottom line that dictates the pronunciation. There is no better example than the legendary German shoe mogul, Adi Dassler, who used his own name as the basis for his corporate image. While most of the world refers to their athletic shoes as ‘AH-dee-dahs’, Americans somehow found a way to call it ‘Uh-DEE-duhs’. Go figure. However, Dassler never cared. Dollars are spent as easily as any other currency.
Other famous names have been colloquialized in their own right. In hockey, Teemu Selanne is a Finnish star who has been in the NHL for quite some time. He may have come to North America as ‘TAE-moo SAY-lah-nuh’, but any hockey fan on the continent will know him only as ‘TEE-moo Seh-LAH-nee’.
Sometimes we even see before our eyes the metamorphosis from universal to colloquial pronunciation. In baseball, Bill Mueller has been a solid major league baseball player since his debut with the San Francisco Giants in 1996. At the time, he was using the traditional German pronunciation of his last name of ‘MYOO-luhr’. However, at some point, he decided and subsequently announced that it was best to say his last name out loud as ‘Miller’. Who knows why? What does one do then? Correct someone on how to say their own name?
Actor Jake Gyllenhåll has Swedish roots. His last name literally means “Golden Way” and should be indicated as “YEE-lehn-hole”. Americans find it easier to say “JEE-lehn-hall.” I’ve never seen anything to indicate where Jake is on the issue. He’s probably too busy being talented and rich.
That is why I find it difficult to criticize anyone who uses either of the two pronunciations. It is a matter of context who is right. As the famous breath mint commercial says, they both are.
My rule of thumb is simple. In any situation, if there are more of them than you and the pronunciation becomes a volatile topic, they are right. Otherwise, universality prevails.
