How about powders? I assume that the four-digits are spoken as (for example) forty-eight thirty-one and the three-digits as (for example) three-eighty. Anyone do it differently? My hunting partner, while adhering to the above for the most part, insists on calling 414, four-one-four.

I'm a forty eight thirty one and four fourteen sort of guy as far as pronunciation goes.

Another for the forty-eight thirty-one and four-fourteen.

2400 = twenty-four hundred
700X = seven hundred X
800x = eight hundred X

What? Nobody pronounces the letters, as in "I Mister"?

You-neek

Bull-sigh

Varg-it (rhymes with the exclamation you make when you throw a flyer in an otherwsie bug hole group - "oh, farg it!")

What it says on the cannister: "Savutonta Ruutia VihtaVuori N 140".

What I call it: "Vee Vee one forty".

What I write: "VV-140".

My friend uses it in his "seven oh eight".

I use "Vee Vee one sixty in my six millimeter remington".

Okay, I'm thick as a brick. I don't get it.

IMR = I Mr.

IMR powders. Following the them of four fourteen it would be 'I Mister'

Duh...

A guy went into a local store and actually asked for some I Mister 4350. That's how I heard about it....

Probably the same guy that had the hardest time cutting the 59th grain of his 58.5 grain 30-06 load. Hard to get that last grain cut exactly in half.
You need good eyes, good glass and good tweezers.

I don't have a cutter on my scoop.

Had I heard him order that my eyes would have misted up! Bear

Being Canadian and having to learn french in school I had always assumed that Varget was pronouced Var-gay until I realized it was likely made to rhyme with target.

I prefer to pronounce it with a soft 'g' sound that's a bit slurred(?). Sort of like Var-jhay.

Yeah, perhaps that's the way I should be saying it as well. You must have a little french in your bloodlines.

Aren't I-Mister powders made in Quebec? Perhaps they should be making Varghay there... flagship of the I-M Extremely difficult to pronouce series.

Ran into a guy at the range the other day who pronounced it var-GET. I said, "you mean VARget?" He seemed a little confused. Sako is another one I hear that bugs me. Socko? No it's Seiko.

Valmet = VAHL-m't in Finland

Sako = SAH-ko in Finland (SAY-ko was Bob Modisette's SAECO, Santa Anita Engineering Company, in California � manufacturer of self-sealing gas tanks for WW2 aircraft and high-quality handloading gear.)

Lapua = LAHP-wah in Finland

Vihtavouri = (I don't know! My guess VEE-tah-VOO-ree)

Husqvarna = hoos-KWAH-nah in Sweden

Swarovski = swah-RAHF-skee in Austria

Voere = (I don't have a clue! Former German company renamed after founders VOEtter and REstle in Austria. My guess VOH-ree.)

Neidner = NIGH-dner (spelled NEIdner in his ads and on his work)

Whelen = HWAY-len (spelled WhelEN in his signature)


Other pronunciations abound in Redneck.

Ken,

In our area Husquvarna is pronounced as Husk-a-varna whether it is a gun or a chain saw. Not saying its right, just the way its done.

Jim

Might bug you, but you're wrong. See Ken's post.

The long "a" in English is seldom pronounced that way in other languages.

Paul

I saw the phoenetic description "SOCK-o" in a Sako ad once. It's still impossible to convince anyone of it though. Most folks seem convinced it's SAY-ko and won't hear of anything else. People who think they're always right are really annoying to those of us who are.

I was always of the impression that Varget was a combination of VARmint and tarGET, and pronounced as such. Maybe I'm wrong...

And just for review:

Loo-pold, not lee-uh-pold

Bausch & Lomb sounds like bowsh (ow like in down) and Lomb rhymes with bomb, not Bosh and Loam

Trivia test:

What do the initials RCBS stand for?
What do the initials MMC stand for?
What do the initials SAECO stand for?

There's always ogive.

True, and meplat.

Rock Chuck Bullet Swage.

The other two escape me.

How about STOS (lube)?

Paul

My mom's parents immigrated from Finland and she could read, write and speak fluently in Finnish.

She pronounce Rapala, rahpala with along "a" as in hoorah.

Not wrapala as in rap music or ra-paw-la.

And, she rolled the "r".

Never sounded right though.

Hoppes

hop-peas

Yep, for years I thought it was hops. Heard it on a commercial recently. Hoppees

That actually happens from time to time, don't laugh.

JW

fish head likes to fish so here's another one.

Gamakatsu = Grammagotcha

Close enough for me.

I like the "schnabel" forend on my M-70 Featherweight, but I'm not sure how to say it and my Webster's dictionary doesn't include it. I would guess because it's a German word, I think.

Not a pronounciation problem, but a misuse of a term I see a lot in the modern magazines: "Furniture" traditionally referred to the metal attachments on flintlock rifle stocks, such as patch-box, buttplate, swivels, etc. as in "This rifle has brass furniture".

I believe somewhere along the line someone assumed that the term furniture referred to the wood itself. Nowdays I often see writers say something like "Turning to the furniture on this new rifle we find an injection-molded black synthetic stock with a nice monte carlo and molded-in checkered panels".

It gives me the shivers.

Not directly related to firearms per se, but regarding the location of the NRA Whittington Center, I hear shooters referring to Raton, with the second syllable pronounced as in "on the table", so it comes out like "Rah tahn", or "Ruh tahn". The correct pronunciation is closer to the Spanish, in which the "ton" is close to "tone", though not exactly.

Paul

That's pretty standard Americanization of Spanish.

A pretty swanky town in Florida is Boca Raton, pronounced Boh-ka ruh-tawn by everybody.

Always thought it amusing that all the rich folks lived in Rat Mouth.

Vihtavouri N-140.

I call it: "En-One-Forty."

BMT

I don't know about Florida, and I've never really studied it, but I'll bet that the locals pronounce Raton the Spanish way. Or it could be different between anglos and hispanics. NM is funny that way.

Now a really strange one is Pueblo, Colorado where I lived for a few years. Even the locals can't agree on which of various pronunciations is correct, "Pee-eblo" being a common alternative to the Spanish version.

Other Coloradoans just call it "Pewtown", probably in reference to the odors emanating from the steel mill

I recall seeing a t-shirt in a shop in Pueblo, reading "Pueblo by the reever".

Paul

Having spent my formative years in Buena Vista County (NW quadrant of Iowa for those sadly lacking in geographic knowledge), it came as a great surprise to me when I ventured beyond its storied borders and found that people insisted on pronouncing it Bway-no Veesta instead of the "correct" Byewn-uh Vista.

According to my late friend Jim Normington, who originated it, "Slicker Than Owl S***."

ogive = OH-jyv

meplat = mepp-LAH (It's French.)

MMC = Miniature Machine Company

SAECO = Santa Anita Engineering COmpany

Similar with the Colorado town of the same name.

IIRC, there's a youth prison there, that the residents and alumni refer to as "Boonie", as in "getting sent to Boonie".

Paul

what about brno?
and cz... "see zed" for us Canajuns... is it "see zee" in the US?

Is it poo-EBB-low or poo-ABE-low for Pueblo?

Is brno a word? I used to think it must be an abbreviation due to the number of consonents strung together, but since then I have seen a lot more consonents strung together than that in eastern European and Russian languages. Russians seem to hate vowels altogether!

ECHO?

Embrace Coarse Humor Only?

The late E C Herkner added the O to his initials for his logo and trade mark.

I've told this one before on the Campfire but find its tiem cas come round again:

A guy named Bruce (pronounced broos) was the national sales manager of Swarovski in the early 1990's. He was making a tour of various stores in the South, and stopped in Birmingham, Alabama, where a local sporting goods store sold more Swarovski riflescopes than any other store in the country.

When he found the optics counter, the clerk behind the counter asked: "Can I he'p you?"

Bruce decided not to tell the guy who he was, and instead just pointed at the Swarovski scopes in the glass case and asked:
"Do sell many of those expensive scopes."

The guy nodded and said, "Yep, we sell a pile of them Sooverhooskis."

Bruce said: "I believe it's pronounced Swar Off Ski."

The guy shook his head. "Not in Alabama!"

Who woulda toldja that...?...


Did I tell you about the guy looking for Hawg-a-Don Powder???


Or the scads Ive had looking for Sahara bullets.....


Ingwe

I knew that you'd know that Ken. Have a great day. Best, John

Those are two alternatives, but the "official" version is close to the Spanish, with two syllables, like "Pwe-blo". Actually, it's like your two examples, except that the "u" and "e" are run together like a single sound, a dipthong?

Like I said, even the natives can't agree.

Paul

I've always loved that word, dipthong. Even back when thongs were worn on the feet, I found it interesting. Today, it presents even more boggling mental images.

OK, but is it "dip-thong" or "dif-thong"?

I'm too lazy to look it up just now.

Curiosity overcame laziness. Webster's says both are acceptable, but "dif" is listed first.

So is it "dipsh!t" or "difthsh!t"?

Paul

I was saying "Hoppy's" long before I heard that billiards champ Willie Hoppe pronounced his name "Hop."

I still don't know which is "right."

The commercial I saw was with a guy from hoppes selling the bore snake. He was saying hoppees. I had only ever heard called hoppes (hops) in this part of the world.

One of my favorite classroom diversions was to ask a volunteer how to pronounce M-A-C-A-R-T-H-U-R and follow the response by asking them to pronounce M-A-C-D-O-N-A-L-D, M-A-C-K-E-N-Z-I-E, and a few others. For the finale, I would ask them to pronounce M-A-C-H-I-N-E.

Words that are similar in spelling are often pronounced quite differently. Very often, it's a matter of where they came from.

More than any other language, American English has always adopted its words from other languages � from our indigenous "Indian" tribes, from an endless plethora of prominent and obscure other languages, from street slang, etc, with the adoption door never closed.

And that's only a very small part of a very minor problem.

Today's U S populace puts a high value on ignorance as a form of independence, peer equality, and nonconformity. Unfamiliarity with our language is especially regarded as something to be proud of. An ever-diminishing percentage of "typical" or "average" citizens even know how to read what's written and how to understand what they can still "read."

Assiduous attention to good English has even become a "sign of arrogance."

One inevitable result is that as a culture, we're losing the ability to think.

(Opining isn't thinking. The closest that many people ever get to thinking is thinking that they're thinking!)

PWAY-blow

In Alaska,

Tanana = tanna-NAW

Chitina = chit-NAW

but

Nenana = nee-NANNA


( � and Tok, of course, = TOHK, not Tock)

Just as I prefer my particular dialect of French for Var-jhay, I also prefer the more proper Germanic pronunciation of that optics firm:
LOY-pold (Loy as in joy).

Drives my brother nuts!

In Utah

Mantua (Man-a-way)

Hurricane (her-ah-kun) (Just the city, not the weather pattern)

Hooper (hup-er)

Ken-
Below is a scan of an ad from Niedner from the January 1928 issue of The American Rifleman. The name is spelled the same in different ads published later in that year.
--Bob

You're right. I got it backward.

In Finland it is pronounced SOCKO.Been to the plant and am a Finn.

Speaking of Alaska.............


Seward = sue word not sea word

Kenai = keen eye not Ken eye

Denali = den alley not den Ollie

Bush Company = fun

"3�9x40" = "three to nine by forty."

"3�9" = three to nine, not "three BY nine."

The en dash (�) isn't a hyphen (-), always means "to" when it's between two numbers (indicates a spread of numbers, from the lower number to the higher number).

Likewise the X, x, or � always means "by" when it's between two numbers � as in 2�4 and 2�12 lumber or 4�4 vehicles, for example.

A "three-by-nine" scope would be a fixed-power 3�, not a variable, with an objective lens very small in diameter.

- = hyphen (standard keyboard character)
� = en dash (ASCII character, Alt + 0150 in most word-processors)
� = em dash (ASCII character, Alt + 0151 in most word-processors)
/ = virgule ("slash" is a cattle-brand term)
* = asterisk (as in "It's too risky for me. I've got only one *."

Depending upon where you are in Ontario the City of Toronto may be pronounced Tor-on-toe or Tronna.

Can anyone tell me what the correct pronunciation is of the flower "bougainvillea" (sp?) Any time I ask I seem to get differing opinions.

Jim

Now you know my Microsoft has so many variations of English in the spell check option? What can be done with language is amazing.

JW

I know the correct saying is SOCKO, just can't bring myself to say it.
Makes me think of some kind of weird circus clown!

When I lived in Phoenix and Yuma, everyone pronounced it
BOO-gen-VEE-ya

* = asterisk (as in "It's too risky for me. I've got only one *." [/quote]


Now THAT was funny

Then don't say SOCk-o. Stretch it out a bit � SAAH-ko.

No one wanted to take a stab at "Brno"? Most people I know insist on calling it Broono. I believe it is "Br-NO"

A well educated [to no avail] gun nut of my aquaintance calls those expensive German optical products, "Sa-VOR-Skee" and the well-known American products "Lee-uh-polds"

Another friend insists on referring to Belgian commercial 98 Mausers as "F and N's"

You just made by day by providing something rarer than a Pedersen device - using (correctly) Belgian instead of Belgium as the adjective form. If I had a nickel for every "Belgium Browning" I've seen mentioned, I could buy one of the things. I don't know why that mistake is so common. I've never seen "Germany Mauser" or "Japan Arisaka" anywhere.

Pronunciation can be a bit of a crap shoot in this part of the country. A mining town named Lead (Leed), capitol named Pierre (Peer), a farm town named Sinai (Si NEE eye), and a lake named Poinsett (PON set) for a couple.

Oh, and a town named Huron that's mostly pronounced closer to Hurine. Then there's the ever popular question, is it "ma NOOR" or "meh NERR."

Guess how "Franchi" is pronounced, unfailingly. But there's enough Finns about that "Sako" always comes out right.

I think that most of us pronounced it to rhyme with "sit".

Well, 5sdad, glad to be of service--and me a product of the public education system! Maybe all is not lost after all...

I system within which I labored for 32 years. You make me proud. Thanks, John

C-H = "See-Aitch" (initials of founder, Charles Heckman).

"See and Aitch" is sugar.

That which we call a rose, huh? Oh fun in the spring when the flinging begins!

My observation is that most folks that live there call it Rat-On not Ra-tone. YMMV

� which of course brings to mind the old Truman gag �

Margaret � "Mama, I wish you'd get Papa to call it fertilizer, not manure!"

Bess � "Honey, it took me twenty years to get him to call it manure."

The redneck in me loves to ask the purty little gal behind the counter at the sandwich shop to put some of that chipootle mustard on my sub. she turns beet red everytime.

Asking for a order of fajeetas gets you about the same reaction.

When I moved to Prescott, Arizona, in the 1970s, the locals pronounced it PRESS-c't.

When I moved away in 1990, the horde of new-comers had changed that to PRESS-COT. (Reminds me of the many times that I've heard handloaders say "If they didn't mean for the case to be full of powder, they wouldn't've made it that big.")

Stodgy old originalist that I am, I still say "PRESS-c't."

(And I agree about the case full of powder � but ask which powder?)

KOWA.........

I called it "cow-uh" for years. As you guys probably know, it's "K-oh-uh".

I am still waiting for the proper way to say "schnabel". Any help?

she-NAH-bel

Uh, not exactly. SHNA-bel.

Except maybe in Minnesota. No offense intended!

Spicer? Little Crow Gun Works?

Here's another: "sa-bot" instead of the correct "say-Bo" for sabot; I don't believe I've ever heard it pronounced correctly in my neck of the woods.

But then I hear a little less than I used to

A young Junior Officer who is related to the Hoppes family (I can't remember how but he had the same name) came through the Navy flight program several years so naturally I had to ask him how the name was pronounced and he confirmed what a few others have said. It's Hoppys like sloppy.

Here's another one--Garand

Simple -- it's pronounced the same as it's spelled -- gehr-AND'

Or the worst one is Brett the quarterback's name -- FAVRE. Should have an accent ague over the e, making it fa-Vray, but certainly NOT farve.

Yes, Little Crow Gunworks in Spicer

Ya sure ya betcha we know hows to pronounce schnable, just not how to spell out the pronounciation. Dale

Dale,

Thanks for the explanation!

A friend from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan once told me that the stuff you spray on your body early in spring to keep the skeeters away is pronounced "insect repellement" by Youpers. But they compensate for the extra syllable on M'orial Day.

Here in Montana we say Ubet instead of Youbetcha....

When we were in high school, a friend's parents were having a "discussion" over how to pronounce Manilla, Iowa and Manila in the Philippines. The mother maintained that they were pronounced the same, while the father strongly held that they were pronounced differently. After considerable back-and-forth, he fervently explained that the one was pronounced "Mah-nill-ah" (to rhyme with vanilla) and the other was pronounced "Mah-nill-ah" (also to rhyme with vanilla), at which point he stormed out, leaving us all to wonder just exactly what the uproar had been about.

Is it eye-O-way or eye-o-wa

Nobody seems to know for sure. Most of the time I hear "eye-oh-wah", but more and more often it seems to just be "eye-wah". It might be of some interest to know that the word Iowa has a number of different meanings in the native tongue from which it was borrowed. The one that the tourism bureau likes to promote is "beautiful land". The one that I find most interesting is "place where the skunk got sick". Like all of the other states, it has its good points and its bad. What I find somewhat distressing is the tendency on the part of many of the residents to have a completely misguided notion of what criteria to use in defining our own state. Best, John

IIRC, Garand = GAIR-'nd

Two that seem to be lost forever are "Florida" (FLOR-ee-da) and "authority" (aw-THAWR-ee-tee). More and more, I hear instead "FLAW-ee-dah" and ""aw-THAW-ee-tee" everywhere.

Even we old south-Alabama hicks grew-up sounding our Rs in those two.

Bianchi

Byankee

We don't have that problem here in Worshington.

According to my friend John Bianchi, cop and holster-maker, it's bee-YANK-ee. Years ago, his ads said so, too.

Heard a child call it "Washingmaton."

Quiz: Does anyone know the name for the projectile inside the sabot?

Would anyone care to take a stab at "Ceska Zbrojovka?"

have we talked "coues deer"?

Is the first (and only ) G in Garand hard or soft?

I have heard it "Guh-rand", like the first "g" in garage, but have also heard it pronounced "Juh-rand", like the second "g" in garage.

Jim, I've always wondered about the whole pronunciation of Garand, but I'm pretty sure the second g is silent.

sooo, are people from Iowa called Iwegions or Iwonians?????

Ya got me.

Post modified accordingly.

Hawkeyes! Sorry, 5sdad.

I believe Garand has a hard "G", and rhyms with Karen with a d on the end. "I will take my Garand on an errand". So I have been told.

Maybe we could all agree to just call it an M-1.

Em-wun

Even though there are other M-1's around, but no one seems to have trouble pronouncing car-bean. Or is it car-bign rhymes with sign?

No takers?

Historically, it has been the lot of oppressed minorities, stripped of their identity, to patiently and quietly marshal their forces, waiting for the day when they rise up and strike down those who would rule over them. (I could go on, but I had to use up the last comma in the house on this final note.)

I've always understood that drinkable (potable) water was properly pronounced PO-ta-bul, but I frequently hear it pronounced POT-a-bul.

Likewise, I've always understood that an�sthetics applied to the surface of the skin (topical an�sthetics) were TOH-pee-cul an�sthetics, but I frequently hear it pronounced TOP-ee-cul.

Just being kinda' silly here, but since sabot is French(I believe) for shoe, would that make the projectile the foot?





Nope, I just call mine Cee Zee's.

We take a PO-ta-bul power generator to the lake.

Cranbrook must be in southern BC!

http://www.forvo.com/word/ceska_zbrojovka/

Sounds like ch-ESK-uh Zah-BROY-v-ka. Which I've always pronounced it similar, but with an 'S' instead of a 'CH' sound at the beginning.

you, sir Cyclone, have a good sense of humor!! I apologize for you "fur-en-urs"; this is an "inside Iowegian joke".

There was once a "poetic" young man
Whose "poetry" never would scan.
He said "Yes, I know that the thing
Just doesn't have any zing,
But I always feel irresistibly compelled to get as many words into the last line as I possibly can."

There was a little town near where I was born in western PA that as a kid I always heard pronounced "lay jose" long a as in hay, bay, ray etc., and long o as in joe, foe, moe, etc., and ending with an esssssss.

The place was spelled "La Jose"

The projectile inside a sabot round is several pounds of hyper- velocity BAD NEWS!!! In one side and out the other and nothing in between survives.

"Maggie"

by Wally McRae

I taught my good dog, Maggie
To lay down when I commanded.
I also taught her "Set"
Whenever I demanded.
I'll teach her next to speak, I said
She struggled to comply.
And when she learned to speak, she said
"You twit. It's 'sit' and 'lie".

That's easy: "boolit".

Instant quiz: what issue of what mag did one of Mule Deer's articles suggest using a "wench-equipped pickup" and whose fault was this little blunder? Bonus points for attaching scan of the original misprint.

Your recollection is correct.

Page 382 of my copy of Hatcher's Notebook: "He pronounces his name Garand[*], with the G hard as in go, and the stress on the first syllable, to rhyme with parent.

*The name is shown with breve (smiley mouth) over both as in Hatcher's text, but that marking is not available in the Windows character set.

--Bob

� = Alt + 0224
� = Alt + 0225
� = Alt + 0226
� = Alt + 0227
� = Alt + 0228
� = Alt + 0229

Take your pick!

Tee hee. Good one, Ken.

Really?





Actually, I cheated a little. The character is available in Windows, but apparently not in HTML. Maybe I'm wrong.

The smiley face over the "a" indicates a "short" a. If both a's in Garand are short, I would think the name would be pronounced GAR-und.

Then how was I able to enter �, �, �, �, �, and � so easily above without cheating? What have I missed?

I thought the above knowledge was limited to ol' typesetters and such! But editors? Don't they all just Insert... symbol now? Next you are going to start with Linotype codes? (yes, even in deep Southern Canada we had linotype machines)

The "code" for is 0063. Now, try entering alt+0063 and post it and see what you get. Here's what I get:

?

If I copy the character in Excel and paste it here, I get this:

ă

They always looked kinda queer to me.

Alongside my 'puter hangs a reminder sheet that lists the keyboardable extra ASCII characters that anybody can type by holding the Alt key down while typing the number-pad strings 0127 through 0255. (They don't work with my laptop, because it doesn't have a number pad.)

I use a few of these characters so often that I don't have to consult the reminder sheet for 'em (�, �, �, �, and �, for example).

There are other ASCII characters, with lower and higher Alt+ numbers, but the spread from Alt+0127 to Alt+0255 amply covers all the characters that I'm likely to need.

Text-entry programs vary a little in which ASCII characters they assign to which Alt+ string, but the ones on my handy reminder sheet are the same for most of 'em.

My reminder sheet also reminds me that to put the hollow-outline cross dingbat at the end of each of my theological essays, I just have to switch to the "Wingding" font and type U.

Handy!

How bout eye-talian? Does that mean you live in eye-taly?

On the History Channel they claimed that John Garand pronounced his name GAIR-und.

The Alaskans I know say CHIT-na and TAN-a-naw.

I've heard Yoopers say a-ZAK-ly for exactly.

Time's up. It's called a "flechette." Don't ask me how to pronounce it.

Ken & Big_Redhead-

Before I posted the quote from Hatcher, I checked a couple of lists of html symbols and was not able to find lower case "a" with the breve mark. I did find the characters that Ken posted, but they were not what appeared in Hatcher's book.

The breve mark may not available in either Windows or html character sets. I found the following in a Microsoft on-line document http://support.microsoft.com/kb/98999:


Here's what I was looking for, and could not find:


--Bob

Oddly, that symbol indicates the sound of the "a" in bad or cat. If both "a"s in the name are to be pronounced that way, then it's really not "GAIR-" at all.

Fleh-shet' with the accent on the last syllable.

It would be GAR-und. The u is the schwa sound. The schwa character is apparently not available in html. I tried it.

It's an almost unpronounceable slurred-over vowel � one of the most common phonemes in English, usually repreresented in pronunciation guides with an up-side-down lower-case e �

like the 'a' in about
like the 'e' in taken
like the 'i' in pencil
like the 'o' in eloquent
like the 'u' in supply
like the 'y' in sibyl

I once asked a student to give me the sound made by schwa. His hesitant response was, "Uh, uh, uh..." At this point I cut him off and told him that he had it correct the first time and that the second two responses were superfluous. I've always thought that it would help matters a great deal if the spelling/pronunciation of the word was schwuh instaed of schwa.

Ken,

I know what the schwa sound is. You're not the only one that paid attention in English class.

And you're not the only one on the forum besides me.

No, the schwa sound is indicated by an upside down and backwards "e." The 'smiley' indicates what I wrote above.

Like I said, I know what the schwa sound is. And like I posted above, the schwa symbol (unside-down e) is not available to posters here on the forum, as far as I know. That's why I substituted the "u" with an explanation.

Touch�!

I agree with the Aussie gun writer's signature line � What I offer is yours to keep, yours to use, yours to ignore. Your freedom to choose is what matters to me most.

That, of course, goes for each and every person here. There's no undertone of belligerence in Take it or leave it � just don't bitch about it.

I see that I misunderstood what you meant; sorry about that. I thought you were referring to the roughly "u" shape above the "a" (that also can't be posted) founf in Hatcher's dscription of how the man introduced himself.

Well, Since John Garand was a French-Canadian born in St-Remi just outside of Montreal, (if memory serves,) his actual name may have been Jean Cantius Garand (the final "nd" is silent and that last "a" would be a nasal a.) He moved to Connecticut at a yound age so his name probably changed from Jean to John to make it easier for the locals. The name Garand simply evolved from Gah-rahn to Gu-rand and that's what he would use.

Sabot is not pronounced 'say-boh'; think of sabotage, we do not pronounce it "say-boh-taj". They both start with sah-boh: sabot= sah-boh and sabotage = sah-boh-taj.

sabot = "[It]'s a bow." (Just omit the it).

(See, Big Redhead? I paid attention in French class, too � even though Miss Butler was a delectable distraction!)

For our Boston members....

Car is pronounced car, not Ca.
Idea is pronounced idea, not idear.

Never for the life of me understood why they took the "r" off words that have it, and put it on words that don't.

now this new yorker is going to have some cuoffee

One who really used to bug my dad was the TV anchor in Baltimore or Washington who brought us "the nooz at nyewn." (Who no doubt would've clipped and saved bales of kewpons if they'd enable him to drive his caah to Cuber.)

My old Navy buddy from Lon[g] Guyland Noo Yock never even tried to explain why I saw it was pronounced "I sorrit."

Ken, that's very good. Now, are we talking about a ship or a present?

It always bugs me when all of a sudden everyone agrees to gussie up the pronunciation of a word. Case in point would be tournament. It used to be plain old "turn-uh-munt", then Dickie Vee came along and now it's got to "toorn-uh-ment".

"Mawige, mawidge is wat bwings us togever today. That bwessed awangement, a dweem wiven a dweem." - Prince's Bride.

"Have you da wing?"

I've wondered why so many pronounce infra-structure as
infa-structure. Has anyone else notice this when watching tv news?

Jim

Yes I have, just as I notice every single time anyone either says or writes "manufacture" when they mean "manufacturer," or "meer" when they mean "mirror."

I don't know if you hear this south of the 49th, but up here it's quite common for people to say or write "an" history instead of "a" history, as in "an history of WWII" or whatever. Whenever something crossed my desk with "an history" the "an" was always edited out. The only way I would allow it is if somebody was quoting a person with a heavy Cockney accent who didn't pronounce the his or her "H's." In which case, the quote would be "... an 'istory of the Tower of London..." to indicate the H was silent in the person's speech.

� and "oinj" for orange, "mfg" or "mfgr" for manufacturer or mfr, "I yern" for iron � and I think that I've already mentioned "Floyda" for Florida and "a-THOY-tees" for authorities.

I've even seen 'mfged" and "mfgd" for manufactured.

(If you feel the urge to puke, go right ahead.)

Voere would probably be pronounced (rougly): fir'reh. The "oe" sound has no equivalent in English. Sometimes, though, the o and e are pronounced separately. To be certain, you'd have to ask a German or Austrian hunter.

Niedner looks to be a German name and would be pronounced need'ner. Perhaps he anglicized the pronunciation. Nighd'ner would be Neidner.

I got it backward (knew better but remembered wrong).

Niedner (NEEDner) is correct � "Neidner" (NI-dner) is wrong.

How about Trijicon?

Miguel Raton = Mickey Mouse

Mee gill Ra tone

Some of my pet peeves [committed by broadcastng professionals!]

"Sosh' Security"

"Suhtistics" [for "statistics"]

"Prezobama" [the pronunciation AND the individual]

also from TV professionals �

"Mute point" for moot point

"Melk" for milk

"Golf" for gulf

"Demure" for demur

"Centurion" for centenarian

also from TV professionals �

"Hone in on" for home in on

"Hard road to hoe" for hard row to hoe

"I could care less" for I couldn't care less

A few years ago, during the Winter Olympics, a well-known female morning show anchor,[now network news anchor]described the luge competitors "hurling down" the luge course-- a priceless mental image! Still gives me a chuckle.

If some of you are eagle-eyed prose stylists, you may have noticed that I still use the classic old-style "serial" comma, which modern stylists have outlawed (the comma before the and in a series of three or more).

Eliminating this comma often gives us such nonsense as this sentence from a major feature article in America's most successful magazine �


" � intravenous users of drugs and Haitians." What a mental image that gem brings to mind!

I'd write it � or edit it � to read like this �

Ken, you are absolutely correct. I will join you in that fight to the bitter end. "We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in rhe fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender..." It is no more all right to leave out that comma than it is all right to use the bastard child named alright. Best, John

I throw the comma in always. While there, I noticed in Britain it's usually left out.

"Shirts are available in red, blue and white and green" can be "red, blue and white, and green" or "red, blue, and white and green."

I've not seen the new "rule" for commas written down, but I gather it's okay to leave it out when there is no ambiguity. In the other example, it looks to me the comma could be left out.

� The writer already knows what he means, and thinks that he's saying it clearly, so he's the least qualified to see where an unintended misunderstanding may lurk.

� The reader doesn't already know what the writer means, so he must puzzle it out from only what he sees.

� The simpler and more straight-forward the "rule," the easier it is to communicate by the printed word (which is already more than most people can handle with any facility and accuracy). Exceptions clutter and complicate.

� Ambiguity is less often a problem than unintentional misstatement. (The latter abounds.)

All the Montanans on the forum and we haven't discussed crick vs. creek yet?

Ken,

We tend to agree on matters of the written word. I learned the English language in grade school. No "rule" adopted since has helped my understanding of the written word, nor that of my audiences. I am a Controls Engineer by education and trade, which means I translate words from other Engineers and people into ones and zeros for the purpose of training machines to do our bidding quickly, accurately, and repetitiously. Doing so requires at least a working knowledge of several languages. Just don't ask me the reason for this post.

Ken-
In some writing and editing circles, that comma is called the "Chicago comma" because its use is recommended in the Chicago Manual of Style.

http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/CMS_FAQ/Commas/Commas_questions01.html

(Oopsie in your post: it should read "the comma after before the and . . .)

--Bob

Oh, so right you are!

Glad you noticed! Thanks!

(Corrected it.)

I edit every document, protocol, proposal, and whatever else crosses my desk to include the comma before the "and," as you've described. It irritates me to see it omitted.

As a full fledged hick I own a heavy barreled L579 Say-Ko and two Man-licker Show-Nowers. I don't have a clue to proper pronunciation but I do take them up the "hollers" in WV to hunt. Also, my neighbor "fount" a hunting knife one day in the woods.

Also, in Alaska the town is pronounced Valdeez, not Valdez. The book "Eats, shoots and leaves" goes into a lot about punctuation.
pak

Very good book, that.

Two that I'm often asked about �

� Which is correct, "I feel bad" or "I feel badly?"
It's exactly the same familiar grammatical construction as "I feel old," "I feel tired," "I feel sad," "I feel happy," "I feel sick," "I feel sleepy enough to sleep all week," and "I feel sore all over" � "I feel bad."
This construction uses bad as a predicate adjective, not badly as an adverb. The predicate adjective applies to the subject, I, not to the verb, feel.



� Which is correct, "long-LIVVed" or "long-LIEved?"
In this construction, the noun life has become a participle (as if it were derived from a verb) that's used here as an adjective. The f is softened into a v, as it does when the singular hoof becomes the plural hooves � "long-LIEved," to rhyme with derived and survived.

Also, "could care less" is a meaningless result of careless failure to think about or to understand what you're saying � a corruption of the original, expressive "couldn't care less."

Maybe not pronunciation, exactly, but I've noticed a lot of people writing "then" when they should use the word "than."
Quite a few run a lot together as in alot of people.
And, why do some people insist on putting an apostrophe before the last "S" in a word when it is not possessive or a contraction?
The English language is bastardized enough already!
OK, rant off now.

Teacher was talking about ignorance and apathy being the world's two worst problems when she noticed that Willie was asleep. She woke him up.

"Wille, what are the two biggest problems in the world today?"

"I don't know, and I don't care."

Yep.

I always told my students that writing "alot" will be grounds for placement in the vaporization chamber when I become King of the World.

The poor apostrophe gets more abuse than any other mark of punctuation. (You didn't even mention the billions of times each day that "it's" is used as a possessive.)

Misuse of "then" and "than" is an irritant to me.

The use of borrow when one means lend drives me nuts e.g. "Will you borrow me $5," and is something I've only run into locally.

Around here we have numerous people who claim to itch a scratch. (I always thought that was the name of that thing from Ohio Art.) I suppose that if they were careless with a sharp object they would cut a bandage, or if it was bad enough they would wound a stitch.

"To no end" � with no purpose
"No end" � with no limit

"Bring" � carry from there to here
"Take" � carry from here to there

Ken, what do you think about the recent trend of using "smartly" in place of "intelligently" or "cleverly"? Example: Jim smartly decided not to tell his wife that the new pants she wore made her butt look big.

I was brought up to believe that "smartly" meant briskly or quickly.

That � briskly, crisply � has always been my understanding, too � but I suspect that the sense that you're asking about is probably a resurrection of the archaic original meaning, long obscured by the much more common recent off-shoot.

� gives a whole new dimension of connotation to "The private saluted the general smartly," doesn't it?

When I overheard an airline passenger talking about the difficulties of getting his "eye sacks" through the baggage inspection, I thought I was listening to a taxidermist or a glass eye maker.

Then he mentioned climbing Mt Hood.

Mishearing can be as strange as mispronouncing.

Bruce

One of the first things that I learned as a singer was to put a definite space, however brief, between words � a point that a short-lived TV commercial recently brought alive again with the voice-over repeatedly stressing "fifty percen toff!" (With an extra-strong t, to boot!)

It's easy to see how "ice axe" could come across to a hearer as "eye sacks."

That brings to mind the old tv commecials for the compilations of recorded music, greatest hits collections featuring a list of the performers included, plus "Minnie Moore!" Can anyone name her hit record?

Then there was the Sunday-School kid who drew an airplane to illustrate Joseph and Mary's flight into Egypt and included, in the cockpit, Pontius the pilot.

And the first-grader who drew an airplane adorned with apples and oranges � the fruited plane, of course!

One more you guys can help me out with...
I've always been inclined to pronounce Ingwe as Tom but how would a guy really say it?

Alox.

Is it a-lox with an "a" like in Dad or Ay-lox like the "a" in day?

Or since it's supposed to stand for aluminum oxide, is it uh-lox?

"Ingwe" is an old indian word that means "seven-by-fifty-seven rocks."

BlueDoe-
Minnie's stuff was popular in Australia; in the US not so much.
See image below.
--Bob