Happening Lately

What's been happening lately, in (informal, not at all "parallel"-- sorry Mrs. Boswell) list form:

• Quite a bit of rain, lightning, and thunder-- not constantly, but frequently enough.
  
• Such intense humidity that it's not very pleasant to be outside, despite temperatures lowered by the rain. (There. That's weather out of the way. I think...)
  
• Donald joined Facebook and discovered some type of Tetris game there, after which fact, Facebook = Tetris, for him.
  
• I've mostly abandoned Facebook. I'm still trying to decide how I feel about it. I like being able to keep up with people who don't (to my knowledge) blog, but there are other aspects of it I don't like at all.
  
• Watched Coraline and thought it was visually striking (in spots, at least) and pretty weird overall.
  
• Watched Being John Malkovich and thought it was really weird.
  
• I started watching Wives and Daughters again. (Always a good antidote for weird.) I think I like it even better on this viewing than before, maybe because of its stark contrast to the Malkovich atrocity. (Apologies to those who love it. There are funny, creative bits, but it just goes off the deep end. Insanity is not creative genius. It's merely insanity. Plus I didn't like any of the characters well enough to care about them. That's never a good sign, in my opinion.)
• Watched Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince at the theater (a weekend or two ago). The special effects were pretty special. I've forgotten most of the book, though, so I can't say how good it was as an adaptation. (It sounds like I've been doing a lot of movie-watching! More than usual, probably, since there's not much new on TV this time of year.)
• Gave Molly the first half of a haircut. She was fairly well-behaved for a while, but progress slowed drastically when we started trying to cut the places she's sensitive about (that is, practically everywhere but the back and sides-- but most especially her legs, feet, and "underneath"). After a while, we decided she'd had enough for one day. Round two awaits... Still, we've removed a lot of hair. She must be more comfortable this way-- and it's funny how much smaller she looks without all that extra padding!
  
• I noticed Donald's driver's license was about to expire, and he went to have it renewed. (Mine's good for another year. I need to write myself a note on the calendar, since they don't send reminders...)
• Someone spoke of "co-boys". I was mystified for a moment, then realized that "co-boy" = "cowboy". So if you ever hear a Swede say something about "co-boys" or "co-girls" at the "ro-day-oh"-- now you'll know what s/he means. Oh! And every Swede knows that "co-boys" love Mexican food, so if you ever have to feed them, I suggest "tack-ohs"-- not tacos, mind, but tack-ohs. Definitely not pasta, though. Co-boys loathe "past-ah". (Sorry, you-know-who. I only do it because you make so few mistakes these days, and I want to remember them for the time when you no longer make any.)
• Oops. I accidentally published this entry prematurely, and I don't see a way to undo it, short of deleting the whole thing... Well, that's ok. I'll just wrap it up quickly...
• Donald's been putting up beadboard wainscoting in the breakfast room. He's making fast progress. Fast by our standards, at least. I've posted a couple of photos (at Flickr) from the first bit he put up, but I need to take more. Maybe later today...
  

How is it pronounced?

I remember that at a certain point in school, I became self-conscious about reading aloud. Until that time, I'd always enjoyed it, because I knew I was good at it. (Let's just be honest, shall we? ;o))

I don't remember the details, but a teacher corrected my pronunciation, and I didn't want to further embarrass myself by mispronouncing even more words. I guess it didn't occur to me that the only way I'd learn correct pronunciation was to hear it. Instead, I felt that it would make me look stupid, and that annoyed me-- particularly when I knew what the word meant. (I'm still not really fond of corrections or so-called "constructive criticism", but I suppose few of us are.)

Anyway, I've long been sensitive to issues of pronunciation. (Maybe this has hindered my progress in learning Swedish. Yeah, that must be it. It couldn't have anything to do with the fact that I never practice. . .)

I'm also interested in linguistic curiosities in general, so naturally I was amused to come across this list somewhere out on the vast WWW. Someone made an impromptu list of names whose bizarre pronunciations bear little resemblance to their spellings.

I'll just copy and paste the relevant bit so you don't have to wade through that forum I linked to above (unless you want to, of course):

Cockburn I mentioned above [pronounced "Coburn"], Other food related ones might be Worcester (sauce) pronounced Wooster; Leicester (cheese) pronounced lester
Other examples (not a complete list by any means)
Wymondham (pronounced Wind-am),
Waldergrave (=Wawgrayve),
Mainwaring (=Mannering),
Magdalene (=Maudlin),
Caius (=Keeys),
Auchinlech (=Aflek)
Althorp – pronounced 'Awltrup'
Belvoir – pronounced 'Beever'
Cholmondely – 'Chumli'
Featherstonehaugh – 'Fanshaw'
Leominster – 'Lemster'
Leveson-Gower – 'Loosen-Gaw'
Marjoribanks – 'Marchbanks'
Ralph – 'Rafe'
Ranulph – 'Ralph'
St. John – 'Sin Jin'
Towcester – 'Toaster'
Woolfardisworthy – 'Woolseri'
Wriothesley – 'Roxli'
Menzies - 'Minges'

Some of you will recognize that the pronunciation of one of those names is very similar to my own maiden name. Interesting! Maybe I have some incredibly distant cousins sipping tea in England under that name. Or maybe not. (g)

In the forum, the topic of St. John/Sin Jin's appearance in Jane Eyre came up. Some seemed to think that if you'd read the book, you'd know that "St. John" is pronounced "Sin Jin".

Part of me is (jokingly) offended because I myself read and loved the book, but never had a clue it wasn't pronounced "Saint John" until I saw a film based on the novel. (True, I thought "Saint John" was an awfully weird name-- yes, I do still form opinions on the weirdness of names, even though I have what is arguably an odd name, myself (g)-- but "Sin Jin" doesn't really seem more normal to me. In fact, it reminds me of "Sinbad the Sailor"!)

Another part of me just wants to laugh and say, "You've got to be kidding, right?!" It's a book! How am I supposed to magically "hear" the way a name is pronounced just by reading it? Especially if it's an odd pronunciation, running counter to everything I've ever been taught about phonetics! Unless I'm forgetting a part of the book where his name is rhymed with something else. And I'm pretty sure I'm not. St. John Rivers isn't exactly the type of character who has rhymes written about him by his fellow characters.

Anyway. . . Be careful around those British people. With mismatched spellings and pronunciations like those, they've gotta be crazy. (Or at least mildly cruel, laying traps of this sort.) ;o)