The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #107674   Message #2236312
Posted By: PoppaGator
14-Jan-08 - 02:33 PM
Thread Name: MacPherson [how to pronounce?]
Subject: RE: MacPherson [how to pronounce?]
Thanks to Don for clearing that up. I always believed/assumed that "dvor-zhack" was correct, but didn't feel qualified to argue back.

I didn NOT know that the "Dvorak" keyboard was pronounced any differently, and that the Anglicized pronunciation without the "zh" could ever be correct. I've only encountered the name in the computer-related context in printed form, never audio, and so simply assumed that the pronunciation I knew for the composer would be correct in the newer context as well.

One reason that I generally know how to pronounce Slavic names correctly, or at least nearly so, is that I'm a pro basketball fan. The NBA has plenty of Eastern European players the spelling of whose names is counter-intuitive for American speakers of English, but we get to hear broadcasters speak these names pretty regularly, presumably correctly, and thus learn some of the more common spelling/pronunciation conventions common to various Slavic languages.