I couldn’t resist sharing with Forum members the following very interesting and instructive exchange of views by e-mail between Filipino-Americans or Filipino expatriates in the United States about the pronunciation of English names. I was copy furnished the discussion thread by FN, a Forum member based in the US.
To protect their privacy, I have redacted the names of the principals in this very candid conversation.
(The visual of Warren Buffett and his quotes below, along with the link to YouTube video on how to pronounce his name, are latter-day additions by the Forum to the original 2011 posting. - November 26, 2018) CHECK THE YOUTUBE VIDEO AT THE BOTTOM FOR
THE CORRECT PRONUNCIATION OF HIS NAME
Listen:From: FilAm #1
To: FilAm #2
Cc: FN
Date: Saturday, November 5, 2011 4:46 AM
By the way, my niece’s daughter goes to a Catholic private school in Pinas and recently they talked about Warren Buffett.* My niece’s daughter pronounced “Buffett” the way you pronounce Jimmy Buffett’s last name (that’s the guy who made famous the song “Margaritaville” and other tropical songs), which is the correct way of pronouncing Warren’s last name, too. My niece’s daughter’s teacher corrected her pronunciation and said the correct way to say Buffett’s name is “boo-fay.” LOL...
From: FilAm #2
To: FilAm #1
Cc: FN
Date: Sunday, November 6, 2011, 2:04 AM
I think that “boo fay” is spelled differently, i.e., only one “t” unlike Warren’s last name.
From: FilAm #1
To: FilAm #2
Cc: FN
Sent: Saturday, November 5, 2011 7:12 PM
Exactly! The teacher is dumber than the student...hehe...and she’s supposedly a UP grad
From: FilAm #2
To: FilAm #1
Cc: FN
Date: Sunday, November 6, 2011, 2:19 AM
The teacher is dumber with respect to the correct pronunciation of Buffett’s name. He/she is probably smarter in other areas.
About a year ago I went to the library to borrow a book on Warren Buffett. I asked the librarian to look it up for me in the library catalog. She could not find it on her first try, i.e., the inquiry brought up nothing. We discovered that it was because she misspelled Buffett, putting in only one “t.” I was not aware it had two “Ts” either....we were both dumb on the spelling of Warren Buffett’s last name.
So I can’t be too hard on the UP grad teacher.
From: FilAm #1
To: FilAm #2
Cc: FN
Date: Sunday, November 6, 2011, 2:59 AM
I agree. However, my niece’s daughter has a few more stories about her with respect to other mispronounced words, erroneous grammar, and wrong answers to test questions. As for the Warren Buffett misspelling, I have always known it to be spelled with double F’s and double T’s because I’m a fan of Jimmy Buffett
...But going back to that teacher, you would think that if she planned to talk about Warren Buffett in class she would be a little more prepared by looking up the “Buffett” pronunciation. Or maybe that’s just me. I do it all the time when I see words and names that are new to me or ones that can be read in different ways. Dictionary.com is not even that hard to remember to listen to [for the] correct pronunciation of words. In her defense, the teacher is a fresh graduate. By the way, my niece’s daughter and her classmates are all aged 10. And when she mispronounced Buffett’s name, every one of those 10-year olds looked at each other, then either shrugged or snickered...like they were shocked that she made that error. Maybe she should be more versed with current events more or watch CNN or the local versions of NBC’s “The Today Show.” Again, in her defense, if she just watches our local TV news programs only, then she is bound to mispronounce names and words. I have detected so many of those while watching LIVE programs on TV when I was there. I’d like to apply for a job at these big networks just so I can correct their pronunciations. I’ll charge them P100 per word corrected...hehe
From: FilAm #2
To: FilAm #1
Cc: FN
Date: Saturday, November 5, 2011, 11:35 PM
By the way, I’m in no way putting down UP grads. People who mispronounce English words in Pinas come from all schools. The ones most familiar to me are students from Ateneo because they are the ones who go to our cybercafe. If you hear some of them speak, you’d cringe. I do not mean to offend anyone who is a graduate of any of these schools. But if you say anything bad about UST grads, you are dead to me...JUST KIDDING! I was schooled in a public high school... I passed the UP entrance exam. However, they did not have the course that I wanted to study so I was forced to enroll at UST. I should have opted for Mapua. I wish I did!
From: FN
To: FilAm #1, FilAm #2
Date: November 8, 2011 12:42 A.M.
Bcc: Others
First of all, I have great respect for UP as an educational institution and for its alumni as much as I have great respect for ANY college graduate who graduated from somewhere else. It is unfortunate, however, that I came across a few UP grads who always found it necessary to make it a point that they are UP grads.
I once courted a girl from UP and I did not find her extraordinarily different from other level-headed people who graduated from other schools. I also met a few other UP grads who are, on the other hand, quite pompous, but I found nothing extraordinary about their general knowledge based on their conversations or in their e-mail postings.
My point?
Again, I think about that poet on some island off Europe who said centuries ago that a rose by any name smells just as sweet.
UP, West Point, UST, PMA, Harvard, etc... Who the heck cares where you graduated from? As long as you know that Austria is not Australia or as long as you know that the law of supply and demand was not authored by some idiot in Congress, etc... then you don’t have to blow your horn...
Ayam bold
to sey dat bekos - er, kasi po hindi ako nag gradwit pram UP... boo, hoo... hibik, hibik... sour grapes, if you will...
Pero, on secon tot, !------------
*Warren Edward Buffett, 88, is an American business magnate, investor, speaker, and philanthropist who serves as chair and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. Considered one of the world's most successful investors, he has a net worth of US$84.4 billion as of November 1, 2018, making him the third-wealthiest person in the world.CLICK LINK BELOW TO WATCH
