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YOU SAY “VON”, I SAY “VAN” ...
LGF investigates the case of the missing microphone stand! Also via LGF, the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank observes pronunciation difficulties:
University of Chicago political scientist John Mearsheimer was in town yesterday to elaborate on his view that American Jewish groups are responsible for the war in Iraq, the destruction of Lebanon’s infrastructure and many other bad things. As evidence, he cited the influence pro-Israel groups have on “John Boner, the House majority leader.”
Actually, Professor, it’s “BAY-ner.” But Mearsheimer quickly dispensed with Boehner (R-Ohio) and moved on to Jewish groups’ nefarious sway over Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who Mearsheimer called “Von Hollen.”
Small mistakes. There are people who still think “Bush” is pronounced “Jooooooo puppet”.
What a pair of stupid bunts. (And I thought that Van Hollen was an “old” musical band. Live and learn, I guess.)
Posted by andycanuck on 2006 08 29 at 12:28 PM • permalinkWell, Boehner really ought to be pronounced “boner”, absent any other context, so Mearsheimer gets a total pass on that from me. (I also don’t buy that the pretense of knowing Washington power politics means he should know the pronunciation of every Representative, leader or not. Mearsheimer’s an asshat, and his thesis about Israel is crap, but Milbank is reaching, and Milbank’s a twit, so I don’t care. There are better things to blast Mearsheimer for.)
How the hell do they get “bay-ner”, anyway? Boehner, as a name, totally looks German, and the German pronunciation, well, ain’t “bay-ner”.
Boehner, as a name, totally looks German, and the German pronunciation, well, ain’t “bay-ner”.
Guess the same reason it’s not pronounced “New Or-le-awn” or “Saint Louie”.
Posted by Quentin George on 2006 08 29 at 04:50 PM • permalinkYes, I think an Arnoldish “Buhneh” as probably the closest way to transcribe the German pronunciation of Boehner (which was likely “Böhner” with an umlaut originally, as Rebecca mentions). That o-umlaut’s a tough one to transfer to English.
At any rate, “Bay-ner” is essentially a flattening of the original sound (my local dialect has a similar feature, albeit usually not with given names). I’d certainly say it’s phonetically closer to the original than just ignoring the umlaut and pronouncing it with a simple long vowel as in “Boner”, although the latter is arguably the more popular way to anglicize German names.
Totally O/T but I can’t resist…
I HATE those t-shirts which have “Von Dutch” on them. They are stupid and make no sense in either Dutch or German.
Posted by Apparatchik on 2006 08 30 at 02:11 AM • permalink
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Poweline has some typically good stuff on Mearsheimer .