Re: What kind of name is "Schiavo"?

ranjit_mathews_at_yahoo.com
Date: 03/23/05 

Date: 22 Mar 2005 22:54:42 -0800

Jim Heckman wrote:
> "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@worldnet.att.net> wrote :
> > Ruud Harmsen wrote:
> > > Tue, 22 Mar 2005 21:29:28 GMT: "Peter T. Daniels"
> > > <grammatim@worldnet.att.net>: in sci.lang:
> > > >Richard Fangnail wrote:
> > > >> I would guess Russian because of the "iavo."

Shakespeare's Italian Iago in Othello gives one a clue.

> > > >> But "Sch" seems more German.
> > > >Sure looks Italian to me.
> > >
> > > That's what I thought too, so the pronunciation would be
[skjavo].
> >
> > The newspeople over here consistently say /skayvo/, presumably
because
> > they've been hearing the lawyers, witnesses, family members, and
judges
> > pronounce it for the past 12 years, so that's how it's pronounced.
>
> Interesting. The news people here on the left coast are
> consistently saying /'s^ayvo/. So is comedian Jon Stewart on the
> _The Daily Show_, based in New York.

Who takes the trouble to get pronunciations right in the US? Has any
American called Sissy Spacek [spAcEk] or Linus Torvalds [linus]? Come
to think of it, in the US, would any legal formalities be necessary for
a Spacek to spell his children's surname as Spachek on their records?