Pronouncing the supremes: Sotomayor edition

Wow, I should not have been surprised by some people in the media stumbling a little on Judge Sotomayor's name — it's unfamiliar to a lot of people and the stress pattern of the Spanish form isn't obvious maybe. But I didn't expect to hear outrage over a modestly Spanish-like pronunciation. Wrong again, as a National Review writer proves here, and this confirms. Mark Krikorian asks about whether to go with the "Spanish pronunciation, so-toe-my-OR, or the natural English pronunciation, SO-tuh-my-er". He clearly wants it anglicized, saying apparently about the native-like stress pattern, "it sticks in my craw":

Deferring to people's own pronunciation of their names should obviously be our first inclination, but there ought to be limits. Putting the emphasis on the final syllable of Sotomayor is unnatural in English.

Unnatural? Limits? SO-tuh-my-er sound utterly horrible to my native English-speaking ear, if we're taking a freaking vote. Having learned about the story from Wonkette (here), there's little left to be said that Wonkette didn't say:

Pronouncing a proper noun in its natural Spanish way “is something we shouldn’t be giving in to.” How is this “giving in to” anything?

I'll let you, gentle reader, click through for the Rest of the Story. (And remember, Wonkette is the very embodiment of 'snark.')



Image from the ToBI folks at Ohio State, here. (If you don't know about ToBI, check it out.)