On Mar 15, 1996 10:28:13, 'Eric Siegel <[log in to unmask]>' wrote:
>The French are almost as bad as the English at bringing names into
>their native language. My favorites are Michel-Ange (French for
>Michelangelo) and Titian (British for Tiziano), though Leonard De
>Vince is kinda neat too. In that case, the French had some claim since
>they nurtured the man himself in his latter days.
Le Primatice, Le Caravage... and it works the other way too: Gherardo
delle Notti (Honthorst) and Bamboccio (Peter van Laer), but these are not
Italianized versions of original names.
1. One wonders, I thought it was Leonardo who was supposed to have nurtured
the French. Anyway his designs for staircases seems to have brought their
renaissance architecture up a level or two.
2. To admit to an embarassment, I remember spending too much time looking
for information on a room at Fontainebleau called the "Galerie du Lis"
(hard s in Lis). I couldn't find it because it was actually the "Galerie
d'Ulysse" that I should have been seaching for.
3. There is a large resident French population in my town, and a French
school to match. During one of their kindergarten (pardon the Deutch)
visits to the Larchmont post office I overheard the teacher telling the
kids to place their letters in the box that says "Larch-mon" repronouncing
the name of the town with a nasel "n" as if it were not English, but
French.. (Nevermind that it was probably named by the Huguenot settlers in
neighboring New Rochelle.) My bloated outrage was soundly burst when I was
politely reminded how we Americans and other English speakers pronounce
Paris, Lyon (Lyons) and Bretagne (Brittany).
It is no crime, it seems, to try to make foreign sounds seem comfortable,
familiar and local.
Robert A. Baron(ofsky)
Museum Computer Consultant
P.O. Box 93, Larchmont N.Y. 10538
[log in to unmask]
P.S. How does that tennis player pronounce his name? You know, the one
that is going to marry what's her name.
--
Robert A. Baron
Museum Computer Consultant
P.O. Box 93, Larchmont N.Y. 10538
[log in to unmask]
--
Robert A. Baron
Museum Computer Consultant
P.O. Box 93, Larchmont N.Y. 10538
[log in to unmask]
|
