Some may find it interesting that the OED (1971 Compact Edition) lists the pronunciation of Quixote as “KWIK-sot”.
Names like Worcester, Gloucester (which also appear in the US) and Leicester make a lot more sense if you realize that the construction isn’t “wor + cester”, rather “worce + ster” and “glouce + ster”.
And Paris is pronounced by the French precisely as it is spelled–acording to the rules of French pronunciation.
Well, I actually did come research, and the answer seems to be simply that “cester” is just pronounced “ster”. So never mind. (It’s still easier if you think of it my way.)
It is an English word. It does not exist in Spanish, so there’s no reason to pronounce it in Spanish. It’s as simple as that.
But in many cases, words such as adjerctives created from a foreign source are pronounced in the way the root is, especially if that pronunciation is commonly used for the word. Although “Quick-sote” is given as an acceptable pronunciation for “Quixote”, I’ve never actually heard it ptronounced that way. I invariably hear “Kee-hoe-tay”. It’s natural that pronunciation of a derived adjective follow the com,only used pronunciation of the root, rather than coming up with a completely new pronunciation derived from a possibly misguided attempt to make it adhere to some presumed orthodoxy. It’s as simple as that.
Put another way, when I use a word, my audience ought to be able to figure out what it means, even if they never encountered it before, from their knowledge of roots. People know of “Don Quixote” pronounced as “Kee Hoe Tay”. Is I say “Quicl sotic” they might easily mistake it for “caotic” or “quickly” or some other word. “Kee-ot-ic” gets my unambiguous meaning across.
The Gloucestershire town of Cirencester is pronounced as it looks. The capital C is soft.
Your attempts to change the pronounciation to “Kee-ot-ic” strikes me as rather quixotic.
Nahhh – they’re Quicksotic.
Besides, I ain’t changin’ nothin’. I’ve still heard “Kee-Hot-Ic” more often that “Quicksotic”
I’ve always said quick-sotic and in fact when I was a kid we referred to the book as Don Quick-sote. I don’t think I heard it pronounce Don Key-ho-tay until college.
FWIW, my Random House Webster Unabridged 2d Edition big honking single volume dictionary has both pronunciations, with the kee pronunciation first.
This is simply not true in any consistent fashion. The word is pronounced in a way that makes sense for the word; if it parallels the pronunciation of the root, it’s most likely a coincidence. DesCartes gets us cartesian, pronounce kar-TEE-zhun; Fuchs gets us *fuchsia *, pronounced FYOO-sha, not FOOKS-ee-uh). Dickens stresses the first syllable; *Dickensian * stresses the second.
We don’t pronounce English words according to their Latin or Greek roots, why should we do so when the root is from another language?
Except that “quixotic,” pronounced “kwik-SOT-ic” is a real word, used by many people, and so your audience is likely to recognize it. Many people who use that word have no idea of its origin.
I have never, EVER, heard it pronounced in any other way, anecdotally speaking. Pronounced as “kwik-SOT-ik,” it’s not an uncommon word, which I hear, pronounced that way, from time to time. NEVER as “kee-HOAT-ic.” I would point and laugh if I did.
Dictionary pronunciations are usually in chronological order, not by usage, like an ingredients list. The archaic will come first.
Never mind how it’s pronounced – quixotic is one of those words that, no matter how often I look it up, I can never remember what it MEANS!
For me, that word is pusillanimous.
(damn it, I could have sworn it meant beautiful, but that’s right, cowardly. Pulchritudinous? whew, that’s beautiful.)
Clearly, then, our experience is vastly different. Only I try not to point and laugh. It’s rude.
I assumed, Cal, that you would be less likely than I to point and laugh. I point and laugh a lot. Seriously, though, vastly different. I have never, *ever *heard such a thing. I mean, I have heard that word spoken hundreds of times–in person and in the media–and I have never, *ever *heard it pronounced in any way other than as phonetic sense would dictate. Not one single time have I ever heard anyone say “kee-HOAT-ik.” If I did, I think it would jar me enough that I might, literally, point and laugh.
Yeah, never heard it pronounced kee-hot-ic, either. That sounds too chaotic.
Which explains why the French translation is Don Quichotte.
Bicester is the sticking point, however…
Try “Featherstonehaugh” out for size. You’ll not guess that pronunciation in a month of Sundays.
And to address the OP, I can just add another (UK) data point from someone who’s only ever heard “kwiksotic”.
Well the question is then begged: what word in Spanish most closely means “futilely or unrealistically idealistic”?