Max at the Millions helps out in pronouncing literary names:
Ask the Internet any question you want, and usually you'll be able to learn the answer, but for some reason it's not very good at helping people find out how to pronounce words and names. I've noticed, looking at my visitor logs, that people show up here again and again trying to find how to pronounce a handful of difficult literary names. Sadly they've found no answers here... until now.Hooray! I can now pronounce Coetzee! (And Goethe too, a long-time guilty secret of mine...)
very very useful.
ReplyDeletei knew how to pronounce coetzee but neither theroux or goethe (blush)
and does louis de bernieres pronounce his first name a la francais or "lewis" as the brits would probably mangle it?
ondaatje was one i didn't know how to pronounce for a while
hey but i'm excellent at classical composers!
Haha... oh yeah! Classical composers are another pain to pronounce... brr!
ReplyDeleteOoh! Excellent question, we should ask those guys how to pronounce Louis de Bernieres.