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sigh. The librarian couldn't pronounce


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Bauer. She wasn't a little off. I had no idea what she was saying. My library doesn't have WTM, so I have to order it. I gave her the title, and she said something. I thought she'd entered the title wrong, but said, "pardon?" She repeated and turned the screen so I could see. She's nice, and is always very kind to my boys, but I had to sigh where she couldn't hear.

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I can understand mispronounciation of names - but if you said her name and then it was mispronounced as she repeated it back, that's less tolerable. I have a pretty easy last name to pronounce, but it could go two ways, depending on where you live...it drives me nuts when I say my name to someone and they repeat it back the wrong way!

 

hello? - what's up with that?

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I can understand mispronounciation of names - but if you said her name and then it was mispronounced as she repeated it back, that's less tolerable. I have a pretty easy last name to pronounce, but it could go two ways, depending on where you live...it drives me nuts when I say my name to someone and they repeat it back the wrong way!

 

hello? - what's up with that?

 

A hearing problem?

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A hearing problem?

 

Must be a lot of hearing impaired folks around here if that's the problem!

 

The vowel in our last name is a short vowel, everyone around here wants it to be a long vowel - makes it a totally different sounding name!

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I've never thought about it. What is the proper pronunciation of "Bauer?" I've always said it like "Bower"

 

Would that be "bower" as in a violinist (which would be wrong) or "bower" as in a kowtowing sycophant (which would be correct :D).

 

Bill

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Must be a lot of hearing impaired folks around here if that's the problem!

 

The vowel in our last name is a short vowel, everyone around here wants it to be a long vowel - makes it a totally different sounding name!

 

People mispronounced & misspelled my Polish last name until I married my Dh and now they mispronounced & misspell my French last name.

 

My feeling is: people are doing the best they can and it doesn't matter in the long run.

 

I am called my DDs name more than my own. I answer to either b/c I know people's intention is good. My name is a very young sounding name and my DDs is more adult. Two completely different names. Who cares? I know they mean me.

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Would that be "bower" as in a violinist (which would be wrong) or "bower" as in a kowtowing sycophant (which would be correct :D).

 

Bill

*ahem*

 

bower01.jpg

 

Much nicer imagery.

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*ahem*

 

bower01.jpg

 

Much nicer imagery.

 

Oh, that is an improvement :D

 

Bauer means "farmer" you know in German, and there is a weird thing you need to do with your mouth to make the diphthong sound completely correct, but bower (as in rose arch) is close enough for gringos.

 

Bill

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Oh, that is an improvement :D

 

Bauer means "farmer" you know in German, and there is a weird thing you need to do with your mouth to make the diphthong sound completely correct, but bower (as in rose arch) is close enough for gringos.

 

Bill

 

ooooh, oooh! I knew that!

 

There is a radio personality whose last name is Bauerle and he often says it means little farmer in German.

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I can understand mispronounciation of names - but if you said her name and then it was mispronounced as she repeated it back, that's less tolerable. I have a pretty easy last name to pronounce, but it could go two ways, depending on where you live...it drives me nuts when I say my name to someone and they repeat it back the wrong way!

 

hello? - what's up with that?

Really? RahRah doesn't seem that hard to pronounce to me!:tongue_smilie: :D
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I would have accepted anything that started with a b and ended in r. Bare, bar, bur, boo-er. I would have at least recognized that she was telling me the correct author. But there was no resemblance whatsoever.

 

Maybe she was having a stroke? Earache? Ear infection?

 

An auditory processing disorder?

 

Toothache?

 

Sore throat?

 

Problem with her dentures?

 

;)

 

You said she was nice to your boys and she was helping you...

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Really? RahRah doesn't seem that hard to pronounce to me!:tongue_smilie: :D

 

See, I thought just "Rah" was the last name. And if you said RahRah to someone and then they said back Rah____(something completely different), then yeah, that would make me nuts too :lol:

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Well, there is a family at my church who pronounces the same name as "bear". It is spelled Bauer but they say Bear, or maybe it is Bare.

 

My husband has a rather long German last name and a rather large extended family. There are two different pronunciations in the same family! Part of the family pronounces it with rather German pronunciation, the other, my husbands immediate family, uses the easier americanized pronunciation. And it always gets mispronounced in a way that has nothing to do with either :lol:

 

That had a lot to do with why not only did I not use his name after we got married, but we didn't give it to the kids either. Too much time correcting everyone!

 

Well, that and my Irish stubborness ;) (and classic Irish surname)

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Well, there is a family at my church who pronounces the same name as "bear". It is spelled Bauer but they say Bear, or maybe it is Bare.

 

My husband has a rather long German last name and a rather large extended family. There are two different pronunciations in the same family! Part of the family pronounces it with rather German pronunciation, the other, my husbands immediate family, uses the easier americanized pronunciation. And it always gets mispronounced in a way that has nothing to do with either :lol:

 

That had a lot to do with why not only did I not use his name after we got married, but we didn't give it to the kids either. Too much time correcting everyone!

 

Well, that and my Irish stubborness ;) (and classic Irish surname)

 

That's funny! My Irish maternal grandma always introduced my DB and I as Sullivans. She couldn't even be bothered with my dad's name!

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Maybe she was having a stroke? Earache? Ear infection?

 

An auditory processing disorder?

 

Toothache?

 

Sore throat?

 

Problem with her dentures?

 

;)

 

You said she was nice to your boys and she was helping you...

 

People also often speak more quickly than they know, and slur words together that the initiated can pick out but can be a bit mysterious for the rest of us. Regardless of familiarity, I often have trouble correctly picking out individual words people say... especially if there's constant background noise or I'm in the process of doing something else (e.g. typing in the title of a book and I'm not yet to the author field).

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I don't think she heard my online sigh. ;) I didn't actually say Bauer for her; I gave her the title.

 

Did it ever occur to you that perhaps it was your own voice that was difficult for her to understand? I think your exasperation at this is a bit over the top. Perhaps she was tired, overworked, had plugged up ears, etc. Let's hope your "sigh" wasn't an audible one, because that would have definitely been impolite!
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When I was a college girl, I was a hostess at a restaurant for a bit. When we were busy, I would read back names that other hostesses had written. it was a horrid job, as people are really picky about how you pronounce their name, even when it is something like Dagnakjlnhafdskykjlnhfcahdf, and they pronounced it "Smith." :glare: The one high point was a very nice looking gentleman twice my age who told me that I had pronounce his name entirely wrong, but that he liked my way better and was now thinking of changing it. :001_wub:

 

Anyway.... I pronounce my vowels in an odd way because I was a military brat when I was learning to talk, and I spent my days equally with a German woman and a woman with a strong Texas accent, and my parents had a Detroit accent. People are sometimes downright rude when they ask me to repeat a word that I have said "wrong." So I understand that she may have had any of a number of reasons for not pronouncing it correctly.

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Well, I grew up as a Bauer. :) I got teased a lot as there was an Angela Bower on Who's the Boss tv show. (Never watched tv much, so I don't know really who she was.)

 

If I traveled outside my home state area, not everyone got the pronunciation right.

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I pronounce it "Bower" like Jim Weiss does in the audio lectures from PHP. :001_smile: I was happy to hear I wasn't pronouncing it wrong, though he pronounces "Wise" as one would pronounce his own last name so I was a bit confused, but that may be my own hearing issues.

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I pronounce it 'Bower' as in rhymes with 'Power'.

 

Just this morning my SIL was complaining that the answering machine at the library in her town says, "You have reached the _____ county LIBERRY". <----now that is said, to work at the library and not even know how to pronounce it correctly!

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That's a shame, isn't it? Our library is also small, and I am frequently disappointed by the selection and staff. Luckily it is part of a larger network of libraries, so I can almost always get the books I want. And I am always thankful to have a library at all.

 

 

I can understand mispronouncing names. Our tiny library, though...my goodness. One librarian is SO nice, but she's barely literate. She spells everything we get and tries to pronounce it, but my 6 yo can do better. I don't mean to knock her, I just find it sad that literacy around here is about at that level and it's the same nice librarian who always forgets to mark our fines off when we pay them because she can't work the computer. We stopped going to our library because of this. Really, it's so tiny that it's not a loss, but we still donate books.
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Sadder than the mispronunciation is that your library doesn't have TWTM!

 

Ours has several copies of each edition and even the newest one looks worn out! It's constantly checked out! :)

 

Also sadder is a library that has one *brand spanking new* copy of the book, second edition, that is filed in the reference section and not available for checkout! :confused:

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I can understand mispronouncing names. Our tiny library, though...my goodness. One librarian is SO nice, but she's barely literate. She spells everything we get and tries to pronounce it, but my 6 yo can do better. I don't mean to knock her, I just find it sad that literacy around here is about at that level and it's the same nice librarian who always forgets to mark our fines off when we pay them because she can't work the computer.

Really? You're praising her?

 

By the way, virtually all librarians have a master's degree, unless they are very old. Is it possible that this "librarian" is actually a support staff member? Might it be more productive to, say, talk to her or her supervisor instead of criticizing her where she can't defend herself. (Oh, I forgot, you're just making a general point about literacy.)

 

On this board and in other gathering spots of homeschooling parents, I've seen plenty of horrific spelling and grammar mistakes and many exclamations of fears about 4th grade math, not to mention examples of weak thinking skills, but I don't think I'd be too popular if I made a thread slamming those parents -- the ones who post on here, not the homeschooling parents who don't, because we all have seen those threads! -- for their gross incompetence at being at the helm of their children's education and implying I am intellectually superior....

 

I could have sworn she said Schiff the first time. So I tried to really listen when she repeated it, but I really don't know. Still had an f in it.
....Especially when not really sure what the mistake was.
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That's a shame, isn't it? Our library is also small, and I am frequently disappointed by the selection and staff. Luckily it is part of a larger network of libraries, so I can almost always get the books I want. And I am always thankful to have a library at all.
Perhaps a remote possibility, but could she have been saying S. Wise?
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See, I thought just "Rah" was the last name. And if you said RahRah to someone and then they said back Rah____(something completely different), then yeah, that would make me nuts too :lol:

 

LOL

 

RahRah is a nickname my nephew coo'ed when he was an infant when he wanted my attention....it stuck, so now that's me!

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My kids must think i am an idiot. One of mine said to me today, "Can Daddy pick me up from my music lesson 30 minutes later today?", and I said, "Grandma called? Why? "

 

Child just about died laughing. But I swear, I though I heard something about Grandma leaving a message.

Edited by LibraryLover
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