#350 - Nitpicking on Japanese? Yes. It is my divine right as an non-native otaku.

[reileen]

Look, author. If you're going to have a pronunciation guide at the front of your novel that spells out the correct way of pronouncing certain Welsh(?) and Irish words that may be unfamiliar to most of your audience, couldn't you at least have done a little bit more research and also spelled out the correct pronunciation for the Japanese word "kitsune", too? It's not kit-soon, it's kit-soo-nay (roughly, since the "tsu" is its own syllable in Japanese). I can understand explaining the pronunciation for some of the words, because I definitely would've been lost on trying to independently figure out the pronunciation for "Daoine Sidhe" (doon-ya shee) or "Luidaeg" (lou-sha-k). But at least the American English transliteration of "kitsune" sort of looks like how it's pronounced, and it's just one itty bitty step to adding that last syllable, "ne", into the mix.

On the other hand, most of these other words have me scratching my head as to why the author thought they'd need to be included in a pronunciation guide. Seriously, "manticore"? "Nixie"? "Kelpie"? "Puca"? And the author even helpfully provides the plural forms, too! Did you know that the plural of "banshee" is "banshees"? I certainly didn't, no ma'am!

This makes me want to chuck the book against the wall and I haven't even read a single page of prose yet. But I want to give this book a chance because it's been getting good reviews from authors I respect.

[/I'll take overreactions brought on by personal frustrations and late nights for $500, Alex!]

Comments

[brigidsblest.livejournal.com]

Heh. I know precisely which book you're referencing...

...and for the record, my pronunciation nitpickiness moment for that same glossary was with Daoine Sidhe, which a friend of mine in high school (an exchange student from Dublin) always told me was pronounced "Theena Shee". *shrug* Though I suppose she could have been having one over on me.

[reileen.livejournal.com]

Could it be, like, a dialectal pronunciation difference or something? Either way, I still think it's silly that this author felt she had to have a pronunciation guide for some of the really simple-looking words. Do you know if the book is any good?

[brigidsblest.livejournal.com]

Well, I liked it--a lot--and I reviewed it here:

http://www.amazon.com/review/R1ZEQ9XCIZBZIJ/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

But I may be biased.

As for the dialectical difference...could be. I really should learn Irish Gaelic myself so then I could make an educated decision on the matter. So many things to do, so little time...

[reileen.livejournal.com]

Ah, okay! I'll try to give it a chance at some point, then.

And yes, not enough hours in a day or days in a week or weeks in a month or months in a year to do all that we want to do. :(

[holyschist.livejournal.com]

I'd probably phonetically spell it kee instead of ki, since most English speakers will read ki as kih.

I'm hoping the author will insist on correcting the pronunciation guide in the next book. I suspect many of the other pronunciations are wrong, too.