Friday, May 4, 2012

Mispronouncing Mendonca

I'm going to miss the Polish flag raising on Sunday (12:30 at City Hall).

Duty calls.  Seriously -- I'll be in Wakefield.  We're doing our change of command over at Lake Quannapowitt.  Following on the heels of a "Yellow Ribbon" event involving presentations and seminars at a hotel in Burlington tomorrow, this isn't exactly a weekend of heavy lifting.  Still, it's gotta happen, and yes, I'm frantically tearing my condo up tonight looking for the ACU patrol cap and the rigger's belt.  And my Yankee Division patches that aren't the wrong color.

On Sunday, I will miss an important chance to hear "men-DON-sa" properly pronounced.

Last week, it was "Mendoca."  I understand the 'c' being pronounced in a cedilla-free sort of way, but they ripped an 'n' out of there in the process, too.

Two weeks ago, it was "Mendoza."  This time, the 'c' got twisted around a bit too far, and again, the 'n' just disappeared.

This week, I caught what I swore was a "Mendonkis" at a different event.

I will continue to post any future variants here on the site.  I am hoping to come up with a "Top 10" list eventually, but I'm not quite sure there are enough possible variants to do it.  

1 comment:

C R Krieger said...

Maybe "Mendonkis" was meant as an ethnic complement, a sort of absorption into another tribe.  At least I hope so.

In my family the line was, "You can call me anything, just don't call me late for supper."

But, I do remember when I first met our Vice-Mayor and worried that I would mis-pronounce his name.

Regards  —  Cliff