Novelist Jim Crace told a story in which he went into a bookstore to find a copy of his own book and when embedded asked for a book by “Jim Krayss” was gravely informed that “It’s pronounced Kra-chay,” and he was so taken aback and kind of intimidated that he didn’t argue.
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No, that’s how Larry “Junk Food Junkie” Groce pronounces it.
Is this turning into a Gallagher routine? :rolleyes:
Alicia Silverstone’s first name is ‘uh-LISS-ee-uh’.
Maya Angelou pronounced the last syllable of her last name as ‘low’ instead of ‘loo,’ as it would seem. (Her husband’s last name was actually ‘Angelos’).
I feel like every few years I have to be reminded how Foucault is pronounced. My brain always wants to say something like fuh-caw’ or foo-call.
I’m amazed that in three pages no one has yet reported any confusion over whether Kim Basinger’s last name is pronounced “Bay-sing-er” or “Bay-singe-er”. Isn’t this supposed to be, like, the canonical example of a mispronounced celebrity name?
At first, it was Ba (short “a,” like a goat)-sin-jer, but then I lost interest.
Yeah, apparently, it’s “bay + singer” (like “one who sings”), but I remember it being pronounced to pretty much rhyme with “passenger” for awhile, too. Don’t remember the “baa-sin-jer” pronunciation, though.
In my teens, I was keen for a while on Joan’s stuff. I recall an occasion when my mother – hostile to all forms of subversive hippy-dippy crap – mispronounced (in deliberate contempt – or I was sure at the time, that that was so), speaking to me of “your Joan Bayz record”. We’re English-speakers, by the way – but maybe “she spoke truer than she knew”.
It’s “Bay-sing-er,” with a hard “g.” Ashton Kutcher also has one of those names that tend to confuse people. His last name looks like it could sound like “Dutch-er,” but it actually rhymes with the word “butcher.”
What amazes me, on this board, that we’re three pages in and no one has floated Raymond Luxury Yacht yet.
That’s a good point. I’m thinking Joan doesn’t know French very well.
The Fast Show had a great sketch about The Unpronounceables. I went looking for it on YouTube, but I can’t find it.
I speak about ten words of German, but I know what ‘schwarz’ means. I always vaguely figured, without actually thinking about it (obviously, because it makes no sense), that ‘Schwarzenegger’ had to mean ‘black egg person’. Like, ‘person who likes/makes/breeds black eggs’.
The Letterman interview was just after Ah-nold married Maria Shriver. Dave asked what “Schwarzenegger” meant and was told “Black Plough Man,” to which Letterman shot back How do you think the Kennedys feel about having a black plough man in the family?
How the hell do you pronounce WWQLCW? (Back up half a page)
For the longest time I mispronounced Raymond Luxury Yacht.
(Snipped for brevity)
See post 81
I don’t doubt you, but my memory of Schwarzenegger’s appearance on Arsenio is quite clear. He appeared on that show, too.
Likewise, I don’t doubt you, either. If a celeb’s on one show, safe bet they’re on the other one(s) sooner rather than later.
The only thing I’ve seen Arsenio do is fall out of a high-rise window after getting tangled in a phone cord (“There’s no fuckin’ Thelma here!”) [from “Amazon Women on the Moon”].
The funny thing about that is that so many Americans are convinced it’s Throat Warbler Mangrove when in fact it’s clearly Throat Wobbler Mangrove.
I’m surprised because he doesn’t look Jai-mən.