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ArchivesTwo Name Pronounciations (and a question)
How are Iola and Nicola [feminine usage] pronounced? I'm assuming (but I'm sure you know what they say
about assuming) that Nicola might be pronounced various ways.
Also, has anyone seen the user-submitted things for Latrina? Granted, they are user-submitted, but do racist jokes seriously belong on BtN? I just want to ask this so I can submit it seriously: is it a changing of Katrina to avoid the hurricane association? Or Trina + a prefix? Or something else that no one knows? There's probably more than one reason, though...
Waiting for a celebrity to name their baby Cthulhu
about assuming) that Nicola might be pronounced various ways.
Also, has anyone seen the user-submitted things for Latrina? Granted, they are user-submitted, but do racist jokes seriously belong on BtN? I just want to ask this so I can submit it seriously: is it a changing of Katrina to avoid the hurricane association? Or Trina + a prefix? Or something else that no one knows? There's probably more than one reason, though...
Waiting for a celebrity to name their baby Cthulhu
This message was edited 4/4/2008, 10:47 AM
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Replies
Yes, I think you are correct that the comments about Latrina are inappropriate--and also incorrect. It is highly unlikely that Latrina was created because someone was deliberately altering the word "latrine". It's just the opposite -- the name was created by people who were blending the prefix La- with Trina and who were NOT familiar with the word "latrine". And it certainly has nothing to do with Hurricane Katrina, as Latrina, like most La- prefix names, was most common for girls born in the 1970s and 1980s, way before that event.
This message was edited 4/7/2008, 8:12 AM
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agree
That sounds very plausible. Because it makes way more sense that there would be people somehow unaware of the word latrine and does not makes sense otherwise. But oh my.
That sounds very plausible. Because it makes way more sense that there would be people somehow unaware of the word latrine and does not makes sense otherwise. But oh my.
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oh dear
I was not aware it was here as a user-submitted name and the explaination given is rather disturbing. Dr Evans's suggestion of the suffix La + Trina makes much more sense (and of people being totally unaware of the word "latrine"). But still, Latrina actually *means* "latrine" in Italian...
I was not aware it was here as a user-submitted name and the explaination given is rather disturbing. Dr Evans's suggestion of the suffix La + Trina makes much more sense (and of people being totally unaware of the word "latrine"). But still, Latrina actually *means* "latrine" in Italian...
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It would be surprising indeed if names from one culture never had an unappealing meaning in a different language. But, sometimes it is troublesome when it happens.
The Indoeuropean group of languages shared a root which originally meant to breath, and we get word like animal from that. In any case, it is an in Sanskrit (pronounced with a schwa, the a- in English about). It gives rise to various words which are used as names today: with -ila (which contracts to -il in pronounciation today, so the name is normally written anil) it means air that we breathe or wind that blows, and with -ala (contracted similarly to -al), it means digestive power or, the more commonly recognized, fire.
I knew of a guy with the latter name who found out that his name was rather unfortunate in English, even though the other word is pronounced differently, and from a completely different Indo-european root meaning a ring.
The Indoeuropean group of languages shared a root which originally meant to breath, and we get word like animal from that. In any case, it is an in Sanskrit (pronounced with a schwa, the a- in English about). It gives rise to various words which are used as names today: with -ila (which contracts to -il in pronounciation today, so the name is normally written anil) it means air that we breathe or wind that blows, and with -ala (contracted similarly to -al), it means digestive power or, the more commonly recognized, fire.
I knew of a guy with the latter name who found out that his name was rather unfortunate in English, even though the other word is pronounced differently, and from a completely different Indo-european root meaning a ring.
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I'm aware that any name could turn up to mean something terrible in another language, but even in English, latrine's very close to Latrina. And if you look at the comments on this website for names such as Bich, Jerk, Dung, it's clear some people are completely oblivious to the basic idea that similar-sounding words may have different meaning in different languages.
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Here in South Africa there's a brilliant classical musician and musicologist who, born to English-speaking parents with, presumably, as much education as any other middle-class people, rejoices in the name of Richard. His surname is Cock. By good luck or good judgement, he is never known as Dick ... but you do wonder about people sometimes.
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