10:04 – I’m cutting several purchase orders this morning for stuff like thousands of bottles and caps, 500 test tube racks, several chemicals, and so on. We’re not quite there yet, but by this time next year we may well be ordering some stuff in pallet quantities and getting those deliveries by motor freight rather than UPS.
Today I’m building biology kits, and may have time to get started on a new batch of forensics kits as well.
A day or so ago, RBT wrote: Pronouncing Latin words in “English” is simply barbaric..
Absolute rubbish. The English language is chock-a-block full of anglicized spellings and pronunciations of foreign words and names. Munich/Muenchen, Florence/Firenze, Rome/Roma, Naples/Napoli to name just a few. To insist that “kikeroe” is the proper pronunciation (in English) of Cicero (vice “siseroe”) is sophomoric. It’s SISEROE, because it’s being used in English by speakers of ENGLISH! As one of your other posters said, the purpose of language is communication, and if you push your audience into saying “Hanh? What did he say?” then you are not communicating. If someone were to ask you what the capital of Mexico (MECKS-ico) was, would you say (approximately) MAY-hee-co City? No, I didn’t think so.
Many people mispronounce many words. That doesn’t make it right.
” If someone were to ask you what the capital of Mexico (MECKS-ico) was, would you say (approximately) MAY-hee-co City? No, I didn’t think so.”
Actually, SEE-YOU-DODD en vez de City.
But, it might be: DEES-TREET-OH FED-ERR-AL.
FlacoVaquero
Anything else that I can help with? Tomorrow I’ll be at school where 100% of the parents are Mexicanos. Back on Thursday with answers.
(Why does spell checker underline Mexicanos in red?)
Yeah, I actually would say meh-hee-co referring to the country, but mex-i-co if referring to the town in New York.
It’s common courtesy to pronounce names, particularly people’s names, correctly to the best of one’s ability.
My beautiful niece # 3 is spending what would be her junior year in high school as an exchange student in Spain. Having had a couple of years of introductory Spanish before she got there, everyone told her that she ‘spoke Spanish like a Mexican’. I wonder if, when she comes back to the US, Spanish speakers will tell her she sounds Galician.
We don’t care what the capital of Mexico is up here but we know that the capital of la belle France is Pah-ree!
And last I knew, the big green interstate highway sign outside the state capital said:
“Bienvenu Montpelier Capitale du Vermont”
So why in hell does the main entrance at the Lowe’s store thirty miles south of here say both “Entrance” and “Entrado”? WTF?
We don’t care what the capital of Mexico is
I thought it was south Los Angeles.
So why in hell does the main entrance at the Lowe’s store thirty miles south of here say both “Entrance” and “Entrado”?
Because it is good business.
National chains standardize their look across the country. Maybe in VT there aren’t a lot of Spanish speaking customers for building material (though it would surprise me), but around here (CT) when I was at Home Depot around 8 AM on a weekday half the vehicles in the parking lot were work trucks and most of the guys who came in them speak Spanish. They are there spending money, of course it is good business to make them welcome.
Back in the ’70’s, BBC started pronouncing the names of various world cities outside of Europe, the same as natives would. That was about the same time we in America started calling Peking by Beijing. There are lots of European city names in Indiana—all butchered by an English pronunciation.
The natives in Berlin generally say Bair-lean with a very slightly heavier emphasis on the first syllable. Connecticut has a city with the same spelling, but pronounced BURR-lun.
Another example: Bolivar, Missouri. It’s named for a famed South American revolutionary. but it’s pronounced so as to rhyme with Oliver.
> (Why does spell checker underline Mexicanos in red?)
I was taught Méjico and mejicanos but MS spellchecker accepts the Spanglish: México and mexicanos.
>>So why in hell does the main entrance at the Lowe’s store thirty miles south of here say both “Entrance” and “Entrado”?
>Because it is good business.
I suppose that it could be intended for that although the correct word is actually entrada. They’ll probably go in laughing. 🙂
“Because it is good business.”
Perhaps it would be in Massachusetts, Nova Caesarea, New York, Florida, Texas, Kalifornia, etc. but northern Vermont? We have about as many Spanish-speaking people around here as folks from Nepal and Namibia.
Perhaps it would be in Massachusetts…
As I said, National chains standardize their look across the country.