tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8100728972151498726.post2048103568445805119..comments2021-07-17T17:54:37.356+01:00Comments on LibraDoodle: What's in a name?LibraDoodlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12746380660423052222noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8100728972151498726.post-82534101899629897992009-01-13T12:05:00.000+00:002009-01-13T12:05:00.000+00:00As for Sue's wonderful surname (it literally means...As for Sue's wonderful surname (it literally means "immortal sun" in Sanskrit), I wouldn't have a clue how to pronounce it - I being of North Indian (and, of course, Scottish) origin, while I assume from Sue's surname, her physiognomy and her beautiful dark-chocolate complexion (I think I'm allowed to say that?) that she's a Southerner.<BR/><BR/>For a start, Northerners tend to exclude the "a" at the end of a name, hence the ancient King "Ashoka" being pronounced "aSHOWk" in the North and "aSHOWkaa" in the South.<BR/><BR/>Care to attempt to give us phonetic spellings of Chimamanda's and Sue's names?Palash Davéhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12907835242090647223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8100728972151498726.post-1819526665781556782009-01-13T11:49:00.000+00:002009-01-13T11:49:00.000+00:00Kirsty's "Paddle" is purely and simply a Scottish ...Kirsty's "Paddle" is purely and simply a Scottish thing. (I write as an honorary Scot, see: I spent the first three years of my life in Galashiels, and I've Super8 footage to prove that Borders Scottish was my first accent.)<BR/><BR/>Think through any Scottish proper names you know – <A HREF="http://www.namenerds.com/scottish/gaelicdude.html" REL="nofollow">Gaelic</A> and <A HREF="http://www.namenerds.com/scottish/scotsguy.html" REL="nofollow">other first names</A>, <A HREF="http://www.namenerds.com/scottish/last.html" REL="nofollow">surnames</A>, even most place names – and you'll find that there's a strong aversion to putting a "schwa" at the beginning of a name. (The "schwa" is a term in phonetics denoting the unstressed toneless neutral vowel sound - the "a" in "about", for example, or the "a" in our Standard English pronunciation of "Pa-DEL").<BR/><BR/>N.B. When doing this exercise of thinking through Scottish names, don't count the "Mac" bit, as this is just the patronymic prefix. So, "MacDougall" is pronounced "M'cDOUG'l" but what we're interested in is the "DOUG'l" bit, and there we find that the stress is - lo and behold - on the first syllable, the "DOU". The only other exceptions you'll find are, similarly, when there's a prefix to the main name, for example "Gil" (denoting "servant of"), as in the surname "GilLESpie", or "Kin" (modern form of the Gaelic "ceann", meaning "head"), as in the place-name "KinROSS", or Dun (Gaelic for "fort") as in "DunDEE".<BR/><BR/>It's for this reason (the rarely having a schwa at the start of a proper name) that a Scot would instinctively reach for "PADdle" over "PaDEL". For the same reason Gordon Brown, in a speech to a Scottish Labour audience during the Chancellorship of Norman LaMONT, insisted on referring to him several times, Scottishly, as "Mr LAM'nt", getting laughs from an audience who appreciated his nativist/class jibe at the hapless Anglicised Tory.Palash Davéhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12907835242090647223noreply@blogger.com