Down the Rabbithole

This month, the Marquis de Chastellux appeared, for the second time in my life, in a book I am reading called Enough is Enuf, on the exciting topic of English orthography.  (English orthography is like American immigration law: hopelessly complex and important, but no one has the guts or political capital to come up with a good and lasting reform that everyone will accept.)  The resurrection of Monsieur le Marquis brought back to life these thoughts from early 2024:

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When one of my children was in elementary school, they came home with a vocabulary list.   They told me their classmate pronounced the word “determined” DEET - er - mind (long I) .  That reminded me of my mother’s story that, because she spent a lot of time reading as a child, she knew lots of words but didn’t know how to pronounce them, a situation which sometimes caused her embarrassment.  

I hope my children did not laugh at their classmate.  But on that day, DEET-er-mind entered our family’s vocabulary.

The up and coming generation can look up how to pronounce words whenever it wants, thanks to Prof. Internet and Lieut. Youtube.  I have been using this feature to quell one source of anxiety in my life: how to pronounce characters’ names.

When reading The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride, it occurred to me that the character’s name “Chona” is probably not pronounced “CHO- nah”, given that she is a person of the early 20th Century whose family speaks Yiddish. I went down a rabbithole of internet exploration. I concluded that her name is more like “Hannah” with a raspy “H” and short “a” vowels.  

Hannah would be pronounced Hona (or Chona), but it is spelled חנה. 

The Yiddish male name "Chonah" or "Chunah" is a Yiddish diminutive form of the Hebrew name "Elchanan".

I was a bit perplexed to learn that the author himself pronounces it “CHO-nah” with the “ch” as in “church”.

I discovered that there is something else called La Chona which might be: 

a Mexican dance, 

a name in Filipino, 

a woman who dates drug traffickers.

In the other book I was reading at the time (First Principles: What America's Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country, by Thomas E. Ricks) , there is a reference to a Frenchman who assists the American revolution - Marquis de Chastellux, a.k.a. Francois-Jean de Beauvoir, Chevalier de Chastellux.  (He didn’t become a marquis until later in his life.)  

Although I was a French major, I was unsure how to pronounce the name Chastellux.  In looking it up I found out that there is an entire Society of the Cincinnati which sponsors lectures, and there was a brilliant lecture by Dr Iris De Rode completely focused on Chastellux, whose name is pronounced something like SHAH-tell-ew, except you have to say “ew” in the French way by kind of pursing your lips. I was delighted to go down this rabbithole, most especially to hear the accent of the Dutch scholar speaking in English.  Charming!

Not the Marquis de Chastellux

Is there any American who did not mispronounce “Hermione” when the Harry Potter series first came out?

I suppose that the best solution to find out how to pronounce characters’ names is to get the audio book.  But that’s not always possible.  

Words I still can’t remember how to pronounce properly, in the moment:

sycophant

ephemeral

presaged

All three words are extremely relevant these days.

However, I can instruct you on how to properly pronounce “prophecy,” “prophesy,” “prophecies,” “prophesies,” and “prophesying.” I refuse to accept “prophesizing.”  

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What difficult-to-pronounce character name have you come across in your reading?

Words of wisdom from across the centuries