FL Hurricane's Name

[Deleted]

Does anyone else wonder if they named the hurricane something no one can pronounce to screw with all the TV news folks?  lol

[Deleted]

Yes they did and it's working.  This morning Savannah Guthrie called it "the storm starting with I" during the Today show.

[andi9899]

What's the name? I missed it.

[busymom]

Isaias.  WTE?  What IS the correct pronunciation?

[dannylion]

It's not difficult to pronounce.  It's just that a certain cohort of Americans seems to be triggered by words or names of non-English origin and  simply refuses to invest the few seconds it would require to learn to pronounce them.  Apparently, the prospect of learning something new fills them with terror.  

[Tennesseer]

Jul 31, 2020 15:57:28 GMT -5 busymom said:

Isaias.  WTE?  What IS the correct pronunciation?

[haapai]

Methinks that they gave the hurricane a name that almost everyone could pronounce or at least guess at with a reasonable chance of getting right, and then they decided to pronounce it in such a way that nobody could possibly get right unless they aped them. 

I have no clue what spelling and  pronunciation system they are following.  It ain't English.  It isn't Spanish.  It probably isn't Italian.  It might be Latin or Greek but I have some doubts about those.  Maybe it's Portuguese, but I still have my doubts.  It sure as hell looks and sounds like they completely made up the pronunciation of this I-storm just to screw with folks.. 

I will back down from this perch if anyone can explain the pronunciation of this storm as it is spelled by linking it to any known pronunciation system in any language that I should know a bit about. 

[justme]

Jul 31, 2020 19:20:20 GMT -5 haapai said:

Methinks that they gave the hurricane a name that almost everyone could pronounce or at least guess at with a reasonable chance of getting right, and then they decided to pronounce it in such a way that nobody could possibly get right unless they aped them. 

I have no clue what spelling and  pronunciation system they are following.  It ain't English.  It isn't Spanish.  It probably isn't Italian.  It might be Latin or Greek but I have some doubts about those.  Maybe it's Portuguese, but I still have my doubts.  It sure as hell looks and sounds like they completely made up the pronunciation of this I-storm just to screw with folks.. 

I will back down from this perch if anyone can explain the pronunciation of this storm as it is spelled by linking it to any known pronunciation system in any language that I should know a bit about. 

A quick Google says it's off 3 Spanish and Latin origins. Wikipedia includes Portuguese.

[haapai]

Then why the heck is something that looks like an irregular spelling and pronunciation of a book of the Book pronounced ICAS?  It's almost as if the folks naming it found a perfectly functional i-name and then decided that it sounded a bit too religious, and decided to mangle its pronunciation in order to sound more secular. 

[justme]

The websites do say it is based off of the Hebrew name Isaiah.

[weltschmerz]

Jul 31, 2020 15:43:37 GMT -5 @shastasnewlife said:

Does anyone else wonder if they named the hurricane something no one can pronounce to screw with all the TV news folks?  lol

Latinos can pronounce it. Why should it be American English? It didn't originate in the USA. It went through some Spanish speaking countries, like the Dominican Republic.

It's not hard.....Isa Ias.

[dannylion]

It is likely that countries where Romance languages are spoken adopted the Latin form of the name, with morphology applied to conform to the conventions of the languages on which Latin was superimposed.  English likely adopted and manipulated the Greek form of the name.  They are just different forms of the same Hebrew name, spelled and pronounced differently because they entered their respective languages from different classical origins. Whatever the origin of the different forms of the name, they were all devised by the human brain and can therefore be pronounced by humans.  It's not like the Latin form originated with space aliens who have vocal characteristics humans don't have.   

[Deleted]

Jul 31, 2020 20:15:31 GMT -5 weltschmerz said:

Jul 31, 2020 15:43:37 GMT -5 @shastasnewlife said:

Does anyone else wonder if they named the hurricane something no one can pronounce to screw with all the TV news folks?  lol

Latinos can pronounce it. Why should it be American English? It didn't originate in the USA. It went through some Spanish speaking countries, like the Dominican Republic.

It's not hard.....Isa Ias.

Personally, I don't care what they name them. But, there doesn't seem to be a single news reporter here in the US that isn't tripping all over it. 

[andi9899]

Jul 31, 2020 15:57:28 GMT -5 busymom said:

Isaias.  WTE?  What IS the correct pronunciation?

Eye-say-is is how we pronounce my friend's son with that name.

[Deleted]

Jul 31, 2020 20:58:04 GMT -5 andi9899 said:

Jul 31, 2020 15:57:28 GMT -5 busymom said:

Isaias.  WTE?  What IS the correct pronunciation?

Eye-say-is is how we pronounce my friend's son with that name.

That's how I would want to say it.  I trip all over the "correct" pronunciation. 

[Deleted]

Jul 31, 2020 20:15:31 GMT -5 weltschmerz said:

It's not hard.....Isa Ias.

They're saying it's Eee Sah Eee Ahs.

[Deleted]

I live in the land of Polish names.  More consonants than syllables.  LOL

[justme]

Jul 31, 2020 20:43:37 GMT -5 @shastasnewlife said:

Jul 31, 2020 20:15:31 GMT -5 weltschmerz said:

Latinos can pronounce it. Why should it be American English? It didn't originate in the USA. It went through some Spanish speaking countries, like the Dominican Republic.

It's not hard.....Isa Ias.

Personally, I don't care what they name them. But, there doesn't seem to be a single news reporter here in the US that isn't tripping all over it. 

[weltschmerz]

Jul 31, 2020 21:11:35 GMT -5 minnesotapaintlady said:

Jul 31, 2020 20:15:31 GMT -5 weltschmerz said:

It's not hard.....Isa Ias.

They're saying it's Eee Sah Eee Ahs.

Yes, that's how I wrote it. Same thing. I just used I instead of E, like it's spelled.
Like Ian and critique.

[Deleted]

Jul 31, 2020 20:15:31 GMT -5 weltschmerz said:

Jul 31, 2020 15:43:37 GMT -5 @shastasnewlife said:

Does anyone else wonder if they named the hurricane something no one can pronounce to screw with all the TV news folks?  lol

Latinos can pronounce it. Why should it be American English? It didn't originate in the USA. It went through some Spanish speaking countries, like the Dominican Republic.

It's not hard.....Isa Ias.

No, it is something like ee-ah-EE-sis.  There is no I sound, which is part of the complaint.

[thyme4change]

They have to use a unique name every storm, and they start over at A every year. There are a limited number of "common" names.

[NoNamePerson]

I don't get the uproar about the name. Half the LOCAL newscasters here talk about the GOLF coast instead of the GULF coast - no biggie

[NoNamePerson]

I don’t see why they don’t just say storm number one and so on! Most in hurricane land care about two things. Am I in the cone and category when making land fall? Jack or Jill plays no part in my decision making. Just more s##t for talking heads to babble on about

[dannylion]

Jul 31, 2020 22:34:26 GMT -5 @bamafan1954 said:

Jul 31, 2020 20:15:31 GMT -5 weltschmerz said:

Latinos can pronounce it. Why should it be American English? It didn't originate in the USA. It went through some Spanish speaking countries, like the Dominican Republic.

It's not hard.....Isa Ias.

No, it is something like ee-ah-EE-sis.  There is no I sound, which is part of the complaint.

Only by applying an English-centric interpretation of the comment.  

English is one of a tiny number of languages in which the default pronunciation of the Latin letter "I" is assumed to sound like "eye" by native speakers.  For nearly everyone else, the default pronunciation of the Latin letter "I" is assumed to be "EE", which is where weltschmerz was going with that, so yes, it was an accurate representation of the pronunciation of the name; it was just not an English-centric representation.    

[lynnerself]

We had a guide in Costa Rica whose name was Ivan.  It was pronounced ee BAN.

[justme]

Aug 1, 2020 7:38:53 GMT -5 NoNamePerson said:

I don’t see why they don’t just say storm number one and so on! Most in hurricane land care about two things. Am I in the cone and category when making land fall? Jack or Jill plays no part in my decision making. Just more s##t for talking heads to babble on about

I think because they found people are more likely to respond to a name than a number. Plus I bet to avoid people going well storm #11 last year was no big deal so I doubt storm #11 this year will be.

Honestly when they have numbers before they're named the numbers blend together - especially of more than one exist at a time. Way easier to differentiate names - we're trained to do that.

Plus this way they can retire a name when it causes a lot of devastation. Which is might be why there's less "easy" names now.

[dannylion]

Aug 1, 2020 10:00:41 GMT -5 lynnerself said:

We had a guide in Costa Rica whose name was Ivan.  It was pronounced ee BAN.

(Warning!  More annoying language trivia follows.)

Ivan, which native English speakers believe is properly pronounced EYE-van, is the Slavic equivalent of the Greek name that in English became "John."  In its native Slavic form, it is pronounced ee-VAN, which becomes ee-BAN in Spanish because the sound English associates with the letter V does not appear in Spanish.  

[saveinla]

My Spanish teacher used to say beinte for twenty when the spelling was veinte. We were so confused the first time we heard it.

[Cookies Galore]

1. My local newscasts (Philadelphia market) have no trouble say the name.
2. I had a $%&!!(# flooded basement and I'm pretty sure all my basement appliances (furnace, W/D, water heater) are done thanks to this storm. Fuck.

[gs11rmb]

Jul 31, 2020 16:01:46 GMT -5 dannylion said:

It's not difficult to pronounce.  It's just that a certain cohort of Americans seems to be triggered by words or names of non-English origin and  simply refuses to invest the few seconds it would require to learn to pronounce them.  Apparently, the prospect of learning something new fills them with terror.  

I think that's a little harsh.  I'm an immigrant with a seriously weird name that really no-one in this country has any idea how to pronounce unless told.  I don't feel insulted or that people are being lazy if they can't remember how to pronounce my name even after we've been introduced.  There are also plenty of names in English that if you went to a non-English speaking country the local people would have difficulty pronouncing.

We used to have a poster here from Jacksonville (I think her username was Naggie).  She was an English immigrant named Nicola, which to me is a very simple and common name.  I've yet to meet an English speaking American who can correctly pronounce Nicola!