In a message dated 11/11/2000 9:09:12 AM Central Standard Time,
lloyd.hanson@n... writes:
<< Once, on a train in Italy, I told a very well educated native that I was
going to Spoleto which I incorrectly pronounced as Spolehto (/E/ rather
than the correct /e/). She did not even recognize the name of the city at
first and when she did she was very quick to correct my pronunciation. I
was grateful for her correction but more than a little surprised at her
honest inability to recognize the city from my pronunciation. Yet we in
the US hear unimaginable pronunciations of Chicago, for example, and always
know what city the foreign speaker is attempting to pronounce and accept it
as OK. >>
My SO and I were in Munich and he had to use the restroom and asked someone
where the "vay say" was... the person was totally confused and had NO idea
what he was talking about ... I stepped in and said, "vay tsay" and he said,
"Oh!" and pointed the way to the W.C. (water closet). Bill was shocked that
such a simple pronunciation error made the word totally incomprehensible. A
similar thing happened in Salzburg when we asked for echinacea at the
pharmacy -- we used the American pronunciation [Ek-I-'ne-sha] and the
pharmacist couldn't understand it till we wrote it out... then he said, "Oh,
[Ek-I-'na-si-a]!" and we got our herbs. That one is understandable, though,
because the pronunciation was so radically different.
Christine Thomas
Wauwatosa, WI
<A HREF="http://hometown.aol.com/mezzoid/myhomepage/profile.html">
http://hometown.aol.com/mezzoid/myhomepage/profile.html</A>
"I love to sing-a, about the moon-a and the June-a and the spring-a"
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