Re: Russian Salad

On Fri, 13 Mar 2009 19:02:58 +0100, Isabelle Cecchini
<isabelle.cecchini@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Egbert White a écrit :
On Wed, 11 Mar 2009 18:52:42 +0100, Isabelle Cecchini
<isabelle.cecchini@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

jerry_friedman@xxxxxxxxx a écrit :
[...]
A propos, I've long but intermittently wondered how to pronounce
"Cecchini". My intuition favors the hybrid /sEkini/, so do I still
have any intuition for French?
Congratulations! Your intuition is indeed working splendidly.

But is it really a French name? I've assumed it came from Italy in
some past generation.

It is indeed an Italian name. The way it's pronounced in French is
"hybrid" as Jerry said. Some French people, either of Italian origin
themselves, or having some knowledge of Italian and wanting to show it
off, will pronounce it with the initial / tS/.

My own very limited and rusty knowledge of Italian failed me, because
I had forgotten the /tS/ pronunciation for initial 'ce.'

But this reminds me of a name I find a little amusing: A goalkeeper
for Chelsea in the EPL is named 'Cech.' On the model of 'Celtic,' it
looks like it could be pronounced /kEtS/, but the pronunciations are
reversed, so it comes out /tSEk/. (I think he's from the Czech
Republic or thereabouts.)

Zealous telemarketers have developed considerable skills in finding as
many ways of slaughtering the name as possible. I suspect there's a
competition going on among them.
--
"How dreary, to be...Somebody! How public, like a frog, to
tell one's name, the live-long June, to an admiring bog!"
<Emily Dickinson>
.

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