Jerry Friedman wrote: >--- Jot Powers <books at bofh.com> wrote: > > >> The obvious counter examples to that include jalapeno and saguaro. >> >>Although >>my favorite requires the telling of a true story that I got second hand >>from the person who experienced it first hand. >> >>This person worked for the NIH (National Institute of Health) in >>Washington, >>D.C. Now, in DC a lot of things tend to be political, and political >>correctness is rampant. There was one particular lady who was >>particularly >>militant about that, and one day she decided to browse her "Network >>Neighborhood" for reasons lost to obscurity. There she notices a >>computer >>that is named Jesus Saves. Now, working at a government agency in DC >>this offends her, so she goes to my friend to track down who owns this. >>He laughs and tells her he has other work to do, he might get to it >>eventually. >>This is not good enough for her, so she goes to his boss and causes a >>ruckus. >>Naturally, his boss comes and asks him to track it down. So he does >>(this >>requires him to determine the MAC address, track which switch it's >>connected to so that they can trace the wiring to find the office). >>They >>do this and go to the office to talk to the person. The office of Jesus >>Saves (Hay-zoos Sav-ez). >> >> > >I like it, but I don't believe it. Google has no relevant hits for >"Pablo Saves", "Roberto Saves", "Pancho Saves", or "Paco Saves". >(There are too many false positives to check "Juan Saves" [an >incident from Byron] or "Pedro Saves" [Christmas].) So I doubt very >much that "Saves" is a Spanish surname. > >By the way, since our resident native speaker of Spanish hasn't >said anything, "Hay-soos Sav-es" would be closer. Speaking of Jose, >here in New Mexico it can be hard to tell whether someone's last >name is "Marquez" or "Marcus". > > Hi, better late than never... I never think to correct an American's pronunciation of Spanish; since my childhood, I've generally discovered that it's a lost cause. I've discovered in specific instances that it isn't quite, as a few of my friends have actually attempted to learn Spanish and thus are interested in pronouncing things properly (and more importantly, know what certain things should sound like, giving them a chance to extrapolate from a small set of Spanish sounds to a larger set). This is why I never correct anyone who mispronounces my first name; by this point, I answer to Hose-A quite readily. To be fair, my Spanish-speaking relatives don't pronounce my first name properly either, but that's because by stressing the first syllable rather than the second, which is where the accent falls (and appears), my name is made into a familiar nickname. Weird, eh? Even more weird is that my middle name, Alejandro, becomes part of my first name when my parents call for me from, say, another room in the house, and it all comes out as Josealejandro, with the emphasis on the jan. The syllables end up as Josea-le-JAN-dro. When it comes to my last name, I try to get people to get that right. I've frequently used the Marquez/Marcus comparison/analogy (in the sense that they're almost analogous) to help people out; I discovered it quite early on when I went to school with a kid that had my same initials, Jonathan A. Marcus. Finally, I also liked the Jesus Saves anecdote, but my first instinct was to check the Urban Legends database to see if this was there. Sadly, I was too busy to actually follow my first instinct (so busy it took me 11 days to answer this e-mail, even if I answered it in my head within minutes of receiving it...), so I'm not positive. But it doesn't sound like a Spanish surname to me. Admittedly, this isn't the best evidence in the world... Okay, I went and tried to check, but the database I was looking doesn't seem to exist. Mmm... irony. As rone pointed out, the pronunciation you give for Jesus as a Spanish name is the one an American would use; a Spanish speaker would pronounce it Heh-SOOS (and gya wouldn't aspirate the second h in Heh, as I'm trying to approximate the flat e sound. José Alejandro Márquez -- Jose Marquez | There are 10 types of people in jhereg69 at earthlink.net | the world: those who understand http://www.hackwater.com | binary, and those who don't.