 |
| credit: www.sid.cam.co.uk |
Graham Pointon in his
blog entry of the 18th of October bemoans the trend-setting attempts of a now credit: www.sid.cam.co.uk'e-meritus' professor of modern European history, Tim Blanning, staff member of the revered University of Cambridge, at giving birth to a new pronunciation of the word 'protagonists' as /prəˈtæʤənɪsts/. Was it a singular, individual bent of a professorial mind? A slip of the tongue? The etymology is straightforward:
proto + agon + istes. Jack Windsor Lewis in his
blog #308 comments: "Some people may wish to retort that there are clear analogies to guide one how to say such words which are usually patently loans from the classical languages but I’m afraid the pattern is muddier than they may think. Many highly educated people tend to be misled by presumed analogies etc." Yes, Jack, this explains or may
explain Prof Blanning's tongue movements, but it does not
excuse them. Moreover, if Tim Blanning regularly pronounces 'protagonist' this way, why hasn't anyone of his peers, staff members, students ever told him: "Sorry, mate, but it's /prəˈtægənɪst/!" They are to blame too, aren't they?
Addition: If you can find the broadcast In Our Time (BBC Radio 4, the 14th of October) on the Internet, listen to Tim Blanning saying (at about 33:30): "[...] and yet two of the protagonists are going off to fight against the rebels." Also, at about 29:10 he says: "[...] the tutor feels obliged to castrate himself." Prof Blanning pronounces the verb castrate as /kɑːˈstreɪt/. None of the three leading pronunciation dictionaries lists this as a variant.
 |
| credit: www.classics.cam.co.uk |
Another blunder must have caused red faces among classicists at Cambridge University in May this year. A new extension was built to the faculty building in Cambridge with front doors made of glass. Academics decided to have a student-inspiring inscription across the glass doors. It is the first sentence of Aristotle's Metaphysics: "πάντες ἄνθρωποι τοῦ εἰδέναι ὀρέγονται φύσει" (all men by nature desiring to know). The famous line was engraved in capital letters. When the handiwork had been accomplished and the glass doors had been installed, one could read ΦΥSΕΙ instead of ΦΥΣΕΙ. It was made public by staff member Winifred Mary Beard, Professor of Classics at the department, in her blog of the 21st of May for TLS. Mind-boggling question: What is 'blog' in Latin or Greek?
I deplore the suggestion that Graham Pointon “bemoans the trend-setting attempts” of Professor Blanning in his pronunciation of “protagonists”. It seriously misrepresents the wisely measured tone in which Graham Pointon made what was purely a scientific observation which did not at all allege that the good professor was even consciously innovating. Anyway, in my opinion a scientist has no business excusing or condemning linguistic behaviour unless he has reason to consider it to something other than unselfconscious. When LPD flags up an item (with its traffic-type warning sign Δ-plus-internal-exclamation-mark) to alert its readers to a disputed usage, it isn’t necessarily declaring the compiler’s own view. As to items like analogous with /ʤ/ which LPD treats as requiring no such warning, does Kraut think there’s “no excuse” for that variant? There are plenty of usages which some people initially disapproved of as “mistakes” which have gone on to become the predominant versions. This was very much the “moral” of my blog #308. I’ve known one or two people who were inclined to inform others of their pronunciatory “transgressions”: they were very unpopular.
ReplyDeleteKraut, for more on the pronunciation of words like "analogous", "longitude", and "longevity", read my blog at:
ReplyDeletehttp://alex-ateachersthoughts.blogspot.com/2010/09/longevity.html
JWL strongly disapproves of my comment on a blog entry by Graham Pointon (= GP), an entry which I interpreted as a criticism of a professorial mispronunciation of the word 'protagonists'. JWL believes Pointon's blog entry of the 18th of October to be a "purely scientific observation". Firstly, I wonder why Mr Pointon should inform readers of his blog about a single instance of an unusual pronunciation. Just to make an observation? It is GP himself who wonders if a trend is set for the future - so it's more than just an observation. Secondly, what is scientific about the statement that a John Smith sat on a chair yesterday facing the backrest? Thirdly, this is a blog and not an academic journal or forum. This blog represents my personal, subjective ideas unless I quote from others. I maintain this blog as a human being with my likes and dislikes and not as a scientist.
ReplyDeleteJWL writes in one of his blogs on the mispronunciation of 'protagonist': "It’s a complete idiosyncrasy. The reason for its being so I guess is what I referred to in my Blog 049 when I sed “It often becomes difficult not to slip back from time to time into using some unorthodox version of a word one internalised on the basis of a .. guess at its sound value from an ambiguous spelling met with before one had noticed it being pronounced differently by others”. In this "scientific observation" JWL opines that the wrong pronunciation is based on a guess made by Professor Blanning. Tim Blanning has been in the 'business' at least since 1970 when he published a book on Joseph II. During those four decades he must have heard more than once the usual pronunciation of the word protagonist. So my questions remain: Was it a singular, individual bent of a professorial mind? A slip of the tongue?