Mark Twain found the German language maddening. George Bernard Shaw
thought English spelling and pronunciation absurd. Well, I don't speak
much German and I never could spell worth a damn. So it's all the same
to me. However, here's a question that isn't:
Who is it who takes foreign words -- from other alphabets yet -- and tells us how to pronounce them?
Oh! And gets them wrong.
Just a couple of examples:
Over
the years, I have heard the name of a city in China pronounced
"peking," "peek-ing," "pay-ping" and, lately "bay-jing." Well, which is
it? Have the Chinese changed their pronunciation of this name every
decade? We still order peek-ing Duck, but apparently the city's name has
moved on. They say.
Next, if Moscow is supposed to be pronounced
"Mosco" (like Monaco, I guess, or Texaco), why spell it as though it
were a sort of cow? They do.
The sole purpose of taking such words
from other alphabets is to give us their proper pronunciation. And yet,
whoever it is who has this purely phonetic task of getting it right
gets it wrong. Whoever that is is called "They."
I know the
identity of highly-paid meteorologists on television who, when their
predictions are wrong, never mention, let alone apologize for the fact. I
can identify Chris Matthews, whose national TV shows -- not counting
repeats -- are a weekly six-pack of inexcusable bad manners; he predicted a
Giuliani presidency in 2008 and a Michelle Bachmann Republican
presidential nomination in 2012. That's Chris. Wrong, certainly, but
identifiable.
Now that we are becoming more aware of the Middle
East, very strange pronunciations show up daily that certainly do not
match their spellings. So we can expect more and more of this
odd-matching.
But what is the source of all this chop-logic and confusion?
That is to say: who are they?
Morrow Wilson is an actor, novelist, singer, playwright, former producer, broadcasting and advertising executive. He is a veteran of summer stock, New York supper clubs, daytime and primetime TV, several films, and many commercials. Widower of Rue McClanahan, he has been cast in more than 100 New York City stage productions, including eight musicals. He earned serious reviews, attendance and money in his one-man musical play NOEL COWARD 101 at the Algonquin. His latest novel is David Sunshine.