databases (was: Re: [Buddha-l] Tibetan for...?)

[Richard Hayes]

On Sunday 07 January 2007 10:28, jkirk wrote:

>           Well yes, not doubt pronouncing Albuquerque correctly would
> imperil one's businsess accounts.

More to the point, there are several correct ways to pronounce it. Thee is a 
correct pronunciation when one is speaking English and another when one is 
speaking New Mexican Spanish. The New Mexican Spanish pronunciation it itself 
a "mispronunciation" of the Spanish of Spain, where the Spanish town after 
which the New Mexican town was named is Alburquerque, which is believed by 
some to be a "mispronunciation" of a Latin name (although some think it could 
be the "mispronunciation" of an Arabic word).

My main point is that to speak of the English pronunciation of a French name 
(Des Moines) or a Spanish name as a mispronunciation is as wrong-headed as it 
would be to speak of the grammar of Jamaican English as a corrupted form of 
proper English grammar.

> However, prissy show-offs are legion on this list, especially when invoking
> native American Indian languages, on and on.

Well, yes. That's pretty much the whole purpose of buddha-l. Why would anyone 
write a message to a list of this nature if they weren't basically trying to 
show off how much they know about something of no real importance to anyone 
in the universe except the fifty-three subscribers to buddha-l?

-- 
Richard P. Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
http://www.unm.edu/~rhayes