accent or mispronounciation? (was RE: [thechat]Chile'stennisfighting for the medals)

[Luther, Ron]

Joel D Canfield pitched in:


> But is Thomas Mann pronounced 'man' or 'mon'?

>>Well, if we follow the 'names leaving their homeland' philosopy, the
>>former. In German, the latter.

> And what about that Hermann Hesse? Is that 'Hess' or 'Hess-a'?

>>Ditto.


Hi Joel,

Excellente! 

Not that I didn't trust you, but I suddenly thought to check over at 
"dictionary.com" ... (dunno why I didn't think to try there earlier) 
<shrug /> ... anyway, they go with 'man' with two dots over the 'a', 
(for an 'a' as in father sound) ... and Hesse with a trailing schwa. 
So it looks like we're right on both of those.

Goethe looks to be as you described ... close to what I had been 
saying, still has the 'tuh' at the end, but without the 'r' in the 
middle.

Nabokov seems to have three alternative pronunciations; the first 
(perhaps primary) seems to be the one Bri suggested ... the second 
seems closer to how I had been pronouncing it ... the third ... well 
the third is just plain weird.

Oeuvre (not an author, just a cool word I remember from a Calvin 
and Hobbes cartoon ... Calvin gives up making snowmen and starts 
making snow sculptures to sell ... Hobbes critiques "I note that 
your oeuvre is monochromatic." ... Calvin replies "Hey! Whaddaya 
expect. I mean, it's just snow!" ... I always liked that) ... anyway 
... it seems to be pronounced much as I imagined.


>>I tend be very tolerant of localization. 

Great! I tend to make my own up!


RonL.
(My son came up with a great one-liner while we were out on the golf 
course Friday ... the course was still pretty wet from heavy rain 
Thursday afternoon when he noted:

"Roll?! ... I've seen more roll at an 'Atkin's friendly' diner!"

Heh.  Good one!)