Sunday, April 08, 2007

Placename game

Will Shortz just did a thing on NPR where he gave a word and you were supposed to give a name of a major city that rhymed with it. His last clue was Yemen, which he pronounced what I take to be the usual American way, namely Y[ɛ]men. I am familiar with Y[e:]men, but didn't happen to think about that. The answer, he hinted, was "a city in Germany". So, I'm trying to think of major German cities that would be spelled ending in -emmen, that is, with a lax or short vowel (the double consonant spelling signals that). But he quickly said: Br[ɛ]men. In German, and in my experience in English too, it's pronounced Br[e:]men. So I think, is this a dialect thing? But Merriam-Webster gives both, with his version first. I would have really avoided that one — the basic variability really throws you off.

3 comments:

The Ridger, FCD said...

Bremen and Yemen are rhymes for me, even though I know Bremen isn't pronounced that way in German. There are lots of places I pronounce Englishy even though I know "better", from the ones like Naples, Munich, and Moscow all the way to Paris and Tokyo... I just learned them too young to change, I suppose.

Anonymous said...

I'm with the ridger - they rhyme in English. Mr. Verb just knows too much German. (p.s. are people from Bremen called Bremeni?)

Anonymous said...

ditto. I guess too much German _can_ be a bad thing...