"…so it’s “Gab-al-DOAN,” I tell Mrs R. “I did like I promised, and posted a thread on The Straight Dope, and the consensus was that that’s how it’s pronounced.”
“I never asked you to post a thread,” she says.
“You did so,” I reply indignantly, “You said ‘Please, please, post a thread on the Dope so you can enlighten me.’” A pause; might as well tease her a little. “Of course, that’s how you can tell I’m lying; I have you saying ‘please’.”
I look over. She’s grinning and has a twinkle in her eye as she responds: “Not to mention, your story has me asking you for enlightenment.”
Pick an author, and you will get a short recording of the author him/herself pronouncing their last name. I never knew how to correctly say Scieszka until coming across this.
In the recent news about the iPhone that the FBI wants Apple to crack, the name Jonathan Zdziarski has turned up here and there. How in the English-speaking world does one pronounce that?
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