Pronouncing the unpronounceable

Let's call the whole thing off.

 

Indiana is smarter than I thought.

 

What happens when a pronounceable force meets an unpronounceable object?

 

An inexplicable phoneme-non.

 

Hmm. I have a vintage Pete Barbutti comedy album (is there any other kind?) in which one of the jokes involved fishing rights in the Puyallup River, and Petey got it right.

And more than a decade before that, I read a whole exchange of dialogue involving the proper pronunciation of Puyallup in, of all things, a Bobbsey Twins novel (I think it was Forest Adventure, the very first one I read, in [I think] first or second grade.)

Alan Dean Foster has answered questions on the pronunciation of Thranx and AAnn names on his web site (Thranx names aren't that difficult to figure out; as to AAnn names, if memory serves correctly, the string of capital letters following the name is to be pronounced as a string of individual letters, not a word.)

 

Fascinating. I had no idea!

 

I didn't like the full Andorian names when they were introduced in DS9, but came to like them later.

 

How is Caeliar pronounced?

 

I think it's "kay-lee-ahr." Like "Kaylee, are you going to share those strawberries?"

 

I grew up in Puyallup. It was years and years before I understood that some people just can't manage the word.

 

With vocal cords and throats?

 

That's close to what I thought but I have heard 'Kay-Lar'.

 

You might be thinking of K'Ehleyr, Worf's slain lover and the mother of Alexander, whose name is inexplicably pronounced "Kay-lar."

 

It's not 'Spoke-Cane' Washington, it's 'Spoke-Can', Washington.
I've heard that pronunciation several times on TV and radio over the years.

 

I was born there, as were both my parents. As I like to joke, I grew up with sensible names like Puyallup and Duwamish and Snoqualmie, as opposed to those weird East Coast names like Schenectady and Poughkeepsie . . ..

Getting back on topic, for a while there I was sneaking Pacific Northwest names into all my Trek books. (I think there's a "U.S.S. Puyallup" in my DS9 book.)

 

Indeed it is. David Mack has confirmed it multiple times on this board.

 

Now I'll have to read it.

How long did you live there? My history there is only from 1978 to 1991, but maybe we know some of the same people.

 

I actually grew up around Sea-Tac, but both sets of grandparents lived in Puyallup back in the day, so there were frequent visits and, yes, I have many fond memories of the Fair and the Daffodil Parade. I moved East back around 1987 . . .

 

Ha, so did I-- when I joined the Army. But I came back. Most of my family is still living between Tacoma and North Bend (and Snoqualmie!).

Anyway, I don't read too many current Trek books, but I am really gonna have to see the reference to "USS Puyallup".

 

Love this thread! I just re-read something I posted back in 2013: