So my daughter is home this week. I’m noticing that, in contrast to my son who came home from the Navy feeling that his dad and I were smarter than he had thought we were before he left, my daughter came home from college feeling that we are MUCH stupider than she is.
Anyway, she wanted me to check on the status of a book she had ordered for one of her classes – The Female Malady by Elaine Showalter. I pronounced ‘malady’ in the title as I have always done, and was rather condescendingly corrected. Apparently, the correct pronunciation is ‘mu-law-dee.’ I argued a bit, but was told that ‘mu-law-dee’ is how Doe’s professor pronounces it, her professor being, of course, an educated person unlike dumb old me.
Now, the only pronunciation I’ve been able to find – in my own dictionaries or online – is the silly, uneducated one I’ve always used. Has any one else heard an alternate pronunciation?
I suppose I’m a dummy like you. I have never heard the word pronounced in any way other than: mal rhymes with pal, uh, dee, with the accent on the first syllable.
I think you chase your daughter around the house yelling “CITE!” every time she corrects your pronunciation until she produces something a little more concrete than Professor so-and-so in class.
I’ve dug and I’ve dug, and I can’t find a single source that even mentions the other pronunciation.
her professor either
a) has an accent
b) is using some odd regional quirk
c) never heard the word and is guessing at how to say it
d) isn’t as edumacated as she thinks
e) is attempting humor of some sort
f) is an idiot
g) some combination of the above
I had this happen to me at a bar once, trying to order Oban scotch. I pronounced it “OH-bun,” which seems to me a perfectly natural way to pronounce the word in English. The bartender (whom I knew to be a bit of a pretentious dick) looks at me and says “huh?” “Oban,” I repeat. “You want what?” “Oban, the whisky,” I say. “OH!!! You must mean oh-BAAAAAAAHHHHNN.” “Listen, I lived and worked next door to Oban for a couple of months, just give me the damned whisky.” And he continued to argue with me, even though I’ve been to the freaking distillery. Personally, I don’t give a crap. Pronounce it how you want, just don’t correct me when I’m right. Somehow, “oh-BAHN” sounds more European and sophisticated, I guess. And just in case anyone needs a site here’s a page with sound files of the distilleries pronounced by the former chairman of the Scotch Malt Whisky Society.
I was in a Thai restaurant in New York. My friend ordered a Tsingha. The waitress brought him a Tsing Tao. He said, “I’m sorry, I wanted a Tsingha.” The waitress said, “You mispronounced it,” and walked away. Leaving the Tsing Tao on the table.
I’m guessing that it’s mostly h). Doe said (after I produced proof that my pronunciation was NOT incorrect), that her teacher is using a French pronunciation. Because, of course (as I would have known were I not so damned dumb), ‘malady’ comes from the French.
Either that or Doe is blowing smoke up my skirt and just blaming her own mispronunciation on her professor.
I kind of hope that’s the case, actually. I find pretentious college freshmen to be sort of cute… Pretentious college professors are much less so. Especially pretentious college professors whom I am paying Large Amounts Of Cash to educate my kid.
pulykamell and lissener, I hope you stiffed those two servers. Pretentious waitstaff are, like pretentious professors, MUCH less cute than pretentious college students.
Even in French, it’s not pronounced muh-LAWD. And it’s from Old French, by way of Old English, so it’s been in the language just about as long as any other English word. If your kid were to pronounce every word in the English language according to its ancient pronunciation–first of all, hilarious!–and second, no one would be able to understand a word she said.
Hee. She also rolled her eyes when two of the three of us wanted to split an entree, and was aggressively–almost angrily–rude to them for the rest of the meal. We gave her something like a 63-cent tip on a $90 dollar tab. When she ran after us saying, “Excuse me, you forgot your change,” my friend said, “No sweetheart, that’s for you.” The waitress then threw it at us and said, “Don’t ever come back then.” We asked to speak to a manager, who heard our story, which ended with my friend saying, “I just got the feeling that she doesn’t want to be here tonight.” To which the manager replied, "I don’t thing she wants to be here at all, " and fired her. (Ours was obviously not the first complaint.)
It’s been years since I’ve taken French, but I’m pretty sure no French person says “muh-LAW-dee” (I’m assuming that’s where the accent is falling in this pronunciation).
But, just for fun, you could tease her by pronouncing every word of French derivation (and, oh boy, are there lots!) with a faux French accent (“ahk-sohn”) to show her how silly it would be to do this.
Over at Jambajuice they have some smoothies with Acai berrys. Apparently, it’s something like “ahsawya”, but it’s spelled “awkai” to me. Anyway, I’d order one, and the clerk instead of taking my fucking order- would correct my pronuniation. Not just once, but day after day after day… I called Corp HQ and they apologized profusely and send me some coupons for free smoothies and I noticed she never did that again- for anyone.
Rock-star Ian Anderson (of Jethro Tull) used to have large real estate holdings on the Island of Skye in Scotland. One night out on tour,he got into a conversation about Scotland with someone at bar or restaurant.
(paraphrased converstaion goes:)
Man: Isle of Skye is beautiful, we went all over, climbed Mt. Blaven (saying BLAY-vin).
Anderson: Wonderful, but you may not have realized it’s pronounced BLAH-vin.
Man: Oh, are you familiar with it?
Anderson: Actually, I own it.
The word that the Professor said was, “m’lady” which is pronounced muh-lay-dee (and perhaps he pronounced it funny, with a british accent or such.) Then, your daughter somewhere didn’t pick up on that he meant “my lady” not “malady” and is slightly misdoing his pronunciation of the former.
