I want to see this loon try to pronounce El Camino Real, San Jose or San Joaquin in his 'nativist' english!

This is exactly the kind of thing that is meant by the phrase "Ugly American". Everything has to be the way THIS GUY SAYS, or else it's just WRONGWRONGWRONG. No room for the fact that this world is filled with different kinds of people. No room for the fact that there are hundreds of other languages and dialects. No room for the fact that every American has the right to dictate HOW HIS/HER NAME IS PRONOUNCED.

He's the quintessential poster boy for Why People Think We're Assholes. No desire to learn, to compromise, to GET ALONG. Nope, for him it's My Way Or The Highway. What a jagoff.

It would appear that Mr. Krikorian (do you pronounce that "crick-Korean?") has committed yet ANOTHER intercultural "fox pass."

"Hey gringo! Why are you so gung ho to get rid of the chandeliers and blitzkriegs?"

Not to mention Schadenfreude, which is what I feel towards Repugs lately!

Here's upset because she pronounces her name SotomaYOR instead of SotoMAYor? What a putz! (Another foreign word.)

It doesn't seem natural at all to me to pronounce "oeh" as "Ay", in the English language, but I doubt that many people get away calling the guy "Boner" to his face.

Actually, I think he's looking more at the model used by our brothers-in-language across the sea. I've always been amused by the way Brits simply refuse to even try to pronounce "foreign" words and names properly. This refusal has always made them sound pompous and superior, kinda the way Krikorian (now THAT's a nice traditional American name) sounds in the quote.

... That very American of states, full of people who speak Spanish and yet whose families have been here for many hundreds of years.

Santa Fe? Taos? Albuquerque? Beautiful, fantastic places, all within the borders of our own U S of A, full of weird pronunciations that don't obey the rules in English.

Can you imagine? The scandalousness of it all? Who Knew?

I'm reminded of the old Steve Martin routine about being in Paris, where "These people don't have the courtesy to speak English!"

The food's good, the music is good and they're not nearly as tightassed about drinking as most anglos. Tapas is spanish for happy hour and they do it a lot better than we do.

If this woman is going to be a Supreme Court Justice for the next 20 or 30 years we're all going to have to learn to get her name right or sound like hicks.

One branch of my family has been here since the Puritans. One ancestor personally got a chuck of Pennsylvania from William Penn. Hell, one long lost relative was Cherokee. Does this mean I get to pronounce "Krikorian" any damned way I please?

Apparently, the answer is yes, I do get to pronounce his name as I see fit.

1. He's never been engaged or married, because then he would certainly have had a fiancée (emphasis on the LAST SYLLABLE). Oh, horrors -- how UNAMERICAN!

2. He doesn't watch NCAA basketball, because he'd probably throw up at seeing the name "Krzyzewski", then hearing it pronounced "shu-SHEF-ski". How UNAMERICAN! How do you get THAT pronunciation out of that name and those letters???

I truly wonder, do the idiots who spew such nonsense ever actually try to listen to themselves? Honestly, such brainless behavior makes me wonder how these people actually hold jobs, have families and function as human beings.

"If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me!"

What the fuck kind of name is Krikorian? How do you pronounce that without the assistance of an empty potato chip bag? I think I'll just pronounce it "dipshit."

If he doesn't want us to say sotomaYOR, I guess it's time we stopped saying "sca-LEE-a" too. fter all, "SCALE-ee-a" is so much more "English-sounding."

for my afternoon laugh Dipshit works for me . How profoundly stupid that man must be.

High-dudgeon? Really!

"I've always been amused by the way Brits simply refuse to even try to pronounce "foreign" words and names properly. This refusal has always made them sound pompous and superior."

Actually it's the other way around. NOBODY -- *anywhere in the world* -- pronounces foreign words the way foreigners do . . . except snooty liberal Americans.

Go on to Spanish or French TV and you won't see any attempt at pronouncing English words or names the way we do.

The worst are the NPR announcers. They continue to pronounce "malaise" and "homage" (for example) as if they're still French words. And who's Cindy Doligez? Nope -- it's Cindy Rodriguez, the NPR reporter whose tongue continues to curl around the Hispanic pronunciation of her last name. It took awhile for me to get it. It's her name, of course, and she can pronounce it the way she wants to. But she shouldn't be surprised if people get her name wrong. We didn't sign up for a class in Spanish pronunciation, y'know.

I have a long Italian name which my grandparents (immigrants) started pronouncing in the American way. It was a sign of respect and assimilation.

Now as to Sonia:

Pronouncing "Sotomayor" on the last syllable, though, is not too much of a stretch. Now, if her name was "Jorjero" and she insisted on spitting out those gutteral "j's", a sound that does not occur in English, that would be a different story.

Homogenized pronunciations are not now and never have been a prevailing feature of the English language. For example, pronounce the following:

Though

Thought

Cough

Enough

Bough

If he's so very concerned about the purity of the English language, he ought to study it more...

Krikorian's post has GOT to be the single dumbest thing I have ever read. And I've read the National Review before. I've read Sarah Palin's "thoughts." Seriously, after nearly 15 years, you would think I've seen the dumbest of the dumb. Enter Krikorian.

You all have got to read his original two posts:

"Most e-mailers were with me on the post on the pronunciation of Judge Sotomayor's name (and a couple griped about the whole Latina/Latino thing — English dropped gender in nouns, what, 1,000 years ago?)."

And

"Deferring to people's own pronunciation of their names should obviously be our first inclination, but there ought to be limits."

And

"And should we put Asian surnames first in English just because that's the way they do it in Asia? When speaking of people in Asia, okay, but not people of Asian origin here, where Mao Tse-tung would properly have been changed to Tse-tung Mao."

And should we be forced to use English names that have dirty connotations here? In England, okay, but here? There ought to be limits. Dick? Bush? Johnson? That really sticks in my craw.

BTW Alex Alexir: I know I'm going to sound stupid here, but with all the stupidity I see on the Web...you did make that up, right? I don't know if I want it to be true or not....