On Fri, Feb 18, 2005 at 11:22:45AM -0500, MedCat7 at aol.com wrote: > My Brazillian friend's name is Bruno. He asked me why everyone says his > name wrong. He pronounces it as brunu with more emphasis (sp) on the > first "u" and almost inaudiable on the second "u". I told him that that's > just how we say things in English. The "o" to us is pronounced as a long > "o" like in dog. . . (Alert! The following is a joke! Alert, the following is a joke!) His problem is that he's spelling it in Brazilian, not English. (The joke is now complete. Please re-engage your serious discussion.) I've said as much to one of the Brazilians here, Goncalo (which he pronounces roughly 'con-SAH-lo'). It's a good point. Every language that uses this alphabet has the same problem -- we don't use exactly the same consonants and vowels for each letter, and sometimes use wildly different ones. A Texan and a Mexican are both equally accurate when they say that Amarillo should be pronounced the way it's spelled. Its just that sometimes it's spelled in english and sometimes in spanish. God only knows what it would sound like if spelled in French. :-) And for the couple of folks who asked how Amarillo is pronounced: Texas: am-uh-RILL-o (that an English LL) Mexico: ah-mah-REE-yo (that's an Enlish y, ie, a Spanish j) Note the M appears in differ syllables, aside from the other differences. -- We were discussing how much illumination the various blinking lights in the computer room emit: He: It just keeps getting brighter in there. Me: If only we did, too.