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Can we get together on pronouncing a name?

M

morningnews

Guest
Talk about confusing. On Tuesday afternoon (11/22), I was watching CNN on a story about Jose Padilla, known as the "dirty bomber". I had always heard the name pronounced Pa-DEE-uh.

But in the "package", the reporter prounounced it Pa-DILL-uh then went into a soundbite with the attourney general Gonzales who calls hims Pa-DEE-uh. I immediately switch to Fox News Channel where minutes later, a package begins with the reporter saying pa-DEE-uh and goes to an interview with the man's lawyer who says pa-DILL-uh.

The AP is now using pa-DILL-uh as a pronouncer but regardless of which way it's pronounced, shouldn't the reporter have the same pronouncation as the interview in that report or at least cut the video so the interviewee isn't giving the name at all so there's no conflict?
 
> Talk about confusing. On Tuesday afternoon (11/22), I was
> watching CNN on a story about Jose Padilla, known as the
> "dirty bomber". I had always heard the name pronounced
> Pa-DEE-uh.

Pronounciation should be driven by the person's own preference.
The Latin American/Spanish pronounciation would hve the two
"l"s as a single letter, ll, called approximately: "Ell-yay".
So, to my way of spelling a pronounciation I'd call it
"Pa-DEEL-yuh" or perhaps "Pa-DEEL-uh" though I favor the first.
My knowledge of Spanish was never huge, though functional, and
it has been years and years since I've used it. Of course in
the Spanish (Castillano) of Spain it would differ a bit. So
I guess it all somewhat depends on where Mr. Padilla's roots
might be.

Perhaps David Eduardo is on the boards and will lend his expertise?


I love it when TV network news starts in on New Englad Indian Place
Names:

Quonochuntaug...

Wequetequock (Ruth Buzzi's family lives there)...

Quequechan....

and May God Forbid they ever have to deal with Welsh place names consisting
exclusively of consonants and sounding like an assortment of click, pops,
and soft, gentle whistles!<P ID="signature">______________
In government, as in gardens:

Moles are far more intelligent than are gophers!</P>
 
> Does it really matter?
>
Of course it does! It's called being professional and consistent. What are you saying, that in the same report, a name can be pronounced two or more ways and it shouldn't matter, that the listener wouldn't be confused? That's why news organizations have style manuals. Often, they say we pronounce something this way or that, whether it's a person in the news or a local town or street.

Nor do I agree that its up to the individual reporter to decide their own pronouncation. If I want to call President Bush "Boo-say" just because I feel like it, would that be okay? In this instance, what I'm talking about is sloppy journalism.
 
> The Latin American/Spanish pronounciation would hve the two
> "l"s as a single letter, ll, called approximately:
> "Ell-yay".
> So, to my way of spelling a pronounciation I'd call it
> "Pa-DEEL-yuh" or perhaps "Pa-DEEL-uh" though I favor the
> first.
> My knowledge of Spanish was never huge, though functional,
> and
> it has been years and years since I've used it. Of course
> in
> the Spanish (Castillano) of Spain it would differ a bit. So
> I guess it all somewhat depends on where Mr. Padilla's roots
> might be.

If this helps at all, a friend of mine has the same last name and he pronounces it "Puh-DEE-yuh".<P ID="signature">______________


</P>
 
Thanks for your definitive explanation

That Les had me most confused.


> Of course it does! It's called being professional and
> consistent. What are you saying, that in the same report, a
> name can be pronounced two or more ways and it shouldn't
> matter, that the listener wouldn't be confused? That's why
> news organizations have style manuals. Often, they say we
> pronounce something this way or that, whether it's a person
> in the news or a local town or street.
>
> Nor do I agree that its up to the individual reporter to
> decide their own pronouncation. If I want to call President
> Bush "Boo-say" just because I feel like it, would that be
> okay? In this instance, what I'm talking about is sloppy
> journalism.
>
 
Re: Thanks for your definitive explanation

> That Les had me most confused.
>
Whose Les? Apparently you were so confused you forgot to make a point. But maybe next time.
 
Pa-DEE-uh

> Whose Les? Apparently you were so confused you forgot to
> make a point. But maybe next time.

He's that first guy who replied to your highly provocative topic, also sports a Yellow M, inactive of course here. You should be a Language consultant over at Fox, you do have a Degree? How is your Arabic?

My favorite Beach in the 'City' of L.A. is Leo Carrillo State Park, pronounced Ka-Ree-O, ask Leo!
 
Re: Pa-DEE-uh (verring OT)

> > Whose Les? Apparently you were so confused you forgot to
> > make a point. But maybe next time.
>
> He's that first guy who replied to your highly provocative
> topic, also sports a Yellow M, inactive of course here. You
> should be a Language consultant over at Fox, you do have a
> Degree? How is your Arabic?
>
Speaking of which....

Remember the opposite. Everyone knew how to SAY his name but no one knew how to spell it - Lybian Leader

Qaddafi
Kadhafi
Ghaddafy

AP, FoxNews And CNN use "Moammar Gadhafi."

Al Jazeera uses "Muammar al-Qadhafi."

The U.S. State Department uses "Mu'ammar Al-Qadhafi."

According to his website HIS personal preference is Muammar Gadafi

This conversation also just came up with Fifty Cent. It is said "Fiddy" Cent. No "s"

OK and now back to the discussion....
 
Welsh

> and May God Forbid they ever have to deal with Welsh place
> names consisting
> exclusively of consonants and sounding like an assortment of
> click, pops,
> and soft, gentle whistles!
>

Some of my most treasured airchecks were recorded during a visit to Wales in 2002 (relevance to this board: we visited the Portmeirion resort, where "The Prisoner" was filmed in the sixties - highly, highly recommended!)

Welsh radio, if you've never heard it, sounds like nothing so much as people clearing their throats for several minutes at a go, interrupted by jingles and pop songs. Remarkable stuff.

You can hear the BBC version here: <a target="_blank" href=http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/networks/cymru/live.shtml>http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/networks/cymru/live.shtml</a>

Alas, the commercial network, Radio Ceredigion, has a website that's under construction and no apparent listen-live link. More's the pity.

What were we talking about, again? <P ID="signature">______________
Tower Site Calendar 2006 JUST RELEASED! - <a target="_blank" href=http://www.fybush.com/nerw.html#calendar>www.fybush.com</a></P>
 
> > The Latin American/Spanish pronounciation would hve the
> two
> > "l"s as a single letter, ll, called approximately:
> > "Ell-yay".
> > So, to my way of spelling a pronounciation I'd call it
> > "Pa-DEEL-yuh" or perhaps "Pa-DEEL-uh" though I favor the
> > first.
> > My knowledge of Spanish was never huge, though functional,
>
> > and
> > it has been years and years since I've used it. Of course
>
> > in
> > the Spanish (Castillano) of Spain it would differ a bit.
> So
> > I guess it all somewhat depends on where Mr. Padilla's
> roots
> > might be.
>
> If this helps at all, a friend of mine has the same last
> name and he pronounces it "Puh-DEE-yuh".
>

That's the most common pronunciation, and until yesterday, I'd heard Padilla's name pronounced that way. However, on KPNX 12 News last night, the anchor pronounced it "Pa-DILL-uh" and explained that that's the way he said he prefers his name to be pronounced. Whatever - it's his name.
 
>
> Pronounciation should be driven by the person's own
> preference.
> The Latin American/Spanish pronounciation would hve the two
>
Years ago, when I was the news director of a San Antonio radio station, anchors and reporters in the market(both radio and tv) loved to roll the r's when a word like Nicaragua(sp?) would come up. Same thing with any hispanic name. People without any accent at all seemed to love to roll the r's on any such name. One of my anchors(who was not hispanic) even pronounced marijuana in news copy as "marr-he-WAN-uh".

So the program director and I came up with a rule that seems stupid to me now. If you were hispanic, you could roll your r's (I think only one of the five reporters on staff was hispanic). Otherwise, you couldn't.

I think a better example of my earlier point of uniform pronouncation is Dick Cheyney. I understand the original pronouncation is CHEE-ney. We had a talk show host who kept pronouncing it that way(this was only about four years ago). Or if someone doing sports did a story about Joe Thiesman insisted on calling him THEES-mun simply because that was the way he pronounced it originally. Or even, if some British reporter going to work for an American newspaper wanted to spell "color" as "colour". All of the above gets in the way of communication.

A lot of it is editing and management direction. Getting back to my earlier reference about a style manual, I even found one online from a company that produced dirty books in the 60's and 70's (they were knocking out about 50 of them a month and had to deal with a lot of writers). It covered everything including spacing and spelling words the american way. Oh yes, it said writers were not to use phrases like "massive mammaries" and "huge manhood". Hey, how could you turn out quality porno without phrase like that?
 
> The AP is now using pa-DILL-uh as a pronouncer but
> regardless of which way it's pronounced, shouldn't the
> reporter have the same pronouncation as the interview in
> that report or at least cut the video so the interviewee
> isn't giving the name at all so there's no conflict?

We're using pa-DILL-uh and I believe that's what NBC Chicago was doing too.

-A <P ID="signature">______________

</P>
 
> > The AP is now using pa-DILL-uh as a pronouncer but
> > regardless of which way it's pronounced, shouldn't the
> > reporter have the same pronouncation as the interview in
> > that report or at least cut the video so the interviewee
> > isn't giving the name at all so there's no conflict?
>
> We're using pa-DILL-uh and I believe that's what NBC Chicago
> was doing too.
>
> -A
>
Yep.....I'm going with pa-Dill-uh now as well. I think the rule should be how that person pronounces it.

We had a case of a policeman killed in my town a couple of years ago whose last name was Wendell. For several days, radio and tv newscsts called him wen-DELL(including one TV station who, in one report, the anchor called him WEN-dul and the reporter called him wen-DELL). Then his family called the media and said the name was pronounced WEN-dul.

I immediately ran a story in several newscasts that morning about the change in pronouncation (the story had been the lead several days so I felt it needed some kind of explanation) using clips from several radio and tv reports showing how the name was being pronounced both ways and that it was the family's wishes. I always say, if you can't fix it, feature it. In this case, I tried to feature it AS I was fixing it.
 
CUMON PEOPLE!!!

Maybe it is just that I live in Texas, but I am amazed at the ingnorance you all have when it comes to Latin-American culture. No offense, it's just that it has become so deeply a part of our (Texan) everyday society that when I see "ll" I think of the "ye" sound automatically.

The fact is... "ll" is actually a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT LETTER in Spanish. I mean totally. The Spanish alphabet (I'm not making any of this up, and again, repectfully, I am surprised you all dont know this) has 30 letters. They have all of ours, plus:

CH (pronounced "che", like the revolutionary, and makes the sound that our ch makes)
LL (pronounced "e-ye, or a-ya [both those a's are long], and make the sound ye, like our y)
They have a letter called "enie", or "enia", which is an N with an accent mark above it
And RR (pronounced "e-rr[roll]-e", or "a-rr-a" [both long], and makes the sound of a rolled r)

So CH, LL, N (can't do the accent mark on our computers), and RR are COMPLETELY DIFFERENT LETTERS. ANYWHERE you see a "ll" in Spanish, it is pronounced like a "y".

Down here, its just one of those things. It's so common, its natural. It has become every day life. So, anywhere I see "ll", I think "y".

It's kinda like hockey fans. Anytime I see "Roy", I whink "Waa".
Anybody? Anybody?

So, ya.
Padilla. (its funny because I look at that, and it is obviously pa-DEEY-a to me. I even say the words I am typing in my head, and I say pa-DEEY-a. By the way, the Y is a part of the EE. So its technically not pa-DEE-ya, its pa-DEEY-a, if that makes any sense.)
All our newscasters know that, as does everyone else down here. Again, no offense, its just that Texas is so much better than any other state!! :)

Padilla
Pa-DEEY-a

SEE YA!

~CTL <P ID="signature">______________
"Welcome to radio-info.com...where we hate everything!!!!! You people are radio's equivalent to the two old guys in the balcony on the Muppet show!"
~FoReal?</P>
 
Re: CUMON PEOPLE!!!

>
> So, ya.
> Padilla. (its funny because I look at that, and it is
> obviously pa-DEEY-a to me. I even say the words I am typing
> in my head, and I say pa-DEEY-a.

Chris,

That's the way it looks to me as well and I was pretty closed to being shocked when the guy's own lawyer pronounced it puh-DILL-a. Up to that point, I would have sworn it was just sloppy reporting when people pronounced it that way.

We had a case in my town of a man shot by a cop whose first name was Verlon. At first, I pronounced it VER-lun. He was a black guy...I don't known if that is a common name in the black community or not. Then (I think this was at his family's request), the pronouncation was changed to ver-LAWN which really sounded weird to me.
 
In the UK, they pretty much always anglicize foreign names, making it much easier.

In america, you have reporters with spanish descent, suddenly breaking into a spanish accent whenever they read a spanish sounding word. It's annoying and should be stopped.

For instance, in England they pronounce the name Jose as Joe-Zay. Here we go Ho-say, which probably annoys any Jose's from a French background.
 
Re: CUMON PEOPLE!!!

> Maybe it is just that I live in Texas, but I am amazed at
> the ingnorance you all have when it comes to Latin-American
> culture. No offense, it's just that it has become so deeply
> a part of our (Texan) everyday society that when I see "ll"
> I think of the "ye" sound automatically.
>
This kind of reminds me when I first started working in the hotel industry years back. We had employed a lot of Mexicans or Texan originally form Mexico and they ABSOLUTELY refused to speak to our Airline crews from the national airlines of Spain and Argentina.

They told me the Spaniards (from Spains) and the Argentines would make fun of "Their" Spanish. So apparently the Spanish spoken in Spain and Argentina differs enough (figures as Argentina was heavily settled by Spaniards and Italians).

So even there I guess there will be always differences.

<P ID="signature">______________
Once I figured out the meaning of life....Then I forgot to write it down.</P>
 
So you, a Broadcast Professional, became "almost shocked"

when you heard the Lawyer pronounce his client's name differently. You know what would be fun, if you compiled a list of all these so called mispronunciations, and then published a Book. It could make for fascinating reading while sitting at the potty, or at a party, pronounced par-tay of course!

And why would you pronounce Verlon as Ver-lun anyway? Must be a regional sort of thing. You had to mention Verlon was Black. Why did the Cop shoot him?


> That's the way it looks to me as well and I was pretty
> closed to being shocked when the guy's own lawyer pronounced
> it puh-DILL-a. Up to that point, I would have sworn it was
> just sloppy reporting when people pronounced it that way.
>
> We had a case in my town of a man shot by a cop whose first
> name was Verlon. At first, I pronounced it VER-lun. He was
> a black guy...I don't known if that is a common name in the
> black community or not. Then (I think this was at his
> family's request), the pronouncation was changed to ver-LAWN
> which really sounded weird to me.
>
 
Re: So you, a Broadcast Professional, became "almost shocked"

>
> And why would you pronounce Verlon as Ver-lun anyway? Must
> be a regional sort of thing. You had to mention Verlon was
> Black. Why did the Cop shoot him?
>
Well, I pronounced it VER-lun because I would have never perceived any other pronouncation.....and never ever would have come up with ver-LAWN out of that.

Actually, I think our street reporters started reporting it VER-lun first. Then another reporter on our staff came up with the second pronouncation. It was a pretty high profile local shooting

The guy was a suspect in some kind of crime. He was at home and apparently called out onto his front porch while several cops had guns aimed at him. One of the policemen said he thought the man was going for a gun although none of the other cops felt threatened.

The policeman, in a rare case, was charged with murder, not once but twice. First one ended in a mistrial, I beleive, and the seccond time he was acquitted. The man's family got a settlement from the police department.

The proseuction said the suspect, who was shirtless, had just dropped his hands to keep his pajama bottoms from falling down.
 
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