Pedants' Paradise

[LMcD]

Notwithstanding, I suspect many people would be nonplussed if they heard an announcer refer to the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks or the Ceske Filharmonie!

True! Perhaps a distinction could be drawn between those names which can be 'sensibly' translated, transcribed or Anglicized and those which can't or shouldn't. I think most people have heard of the orchestra at last night's Prom and don't feel the need to have the meaning or relevance of 'Divan' explained to them.

[Mal]

I think most people have heard of the orchestra at last night's Prom and don't feel the need to have the meaning or relevance of 'Divan' explained to them.

How do you know what 'most people' feel the need for? Even if the majority don't feel the need, shouldn't a minority be catered for?

I feel the need! And it took quite a bit of googling & reading to find out.... Wikipedia didn't help. So the BBC providing a quick explanation would be useful to many people. Isn't that what the BBC is there for, to educate and inform the general populace.

For the majority/minority reading this thread who also feel the need:

"The orchestra was named after a collection of poems [West–östlicher Divan (West–Eastern Diwan)] by [Johann Wolfgang von] Goethe, inspired by the Persian poet Hafiz, which deal with the idea of the Other as a manifestation or element of the Self."

https://theculturetrip.com/middle-east/israel/articles/daniel-barenboim-and-edward-said-s-west-eastern-divan-orchestra/

Note, Wikipedia translates Divan as Diwan. Is the v -> w translation correct?

As the usual translation, or alternative meaning, of 'divan' is 'couch', I wondered what furniture had to do with it; auntie put me straight, from arabic, it also translates as "assemblage":

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b01l0drs

[gurnemanz]

But this morning, for the first time, a recording was announced as being by the 'Dresden State Orchestra' - am I alone in thinking that it just doesn't sound right (and is it even accurate?)

People got used to calling it "Dresden State Orchestra" as a translation of "Staatskapelle Dresden" or "Dresdner Staatskapelle", as it was known under the DDR regime. Nowadays this is not the correct name, but would be OK if referring to the many recordings made during that era. After reunification, when East Germany was integrated into the Federal Republic, Dresden became the capital of the Federal State (Bundesland) of Saxony. Thus the orchestra now officially calls itself "Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden" - tricky to say but perfectly pronounceable for foreigners with practice. In English it would be: Saxon State Orchestra Dresden.

Traditional rivalry with Saxony's other main city, Leipzig, goes on. This name of the orchestra reminds Leipzig that they are the historical royal capital of Saxony and that Leipzig is some kind commercial upstart whose orchestra is rather vulgarly named after the Cloth Merchants' Hall .

[LezLee]

I've never liked Paxperson - bumptious pretentious prat.

I can forgive him a lot for being the only TV person I've heard pronounce 'lingerie' correctly!

[Serial_Apologist]

I can forgive him a lot for being the only TV person I've heard pronounce 'lingerie' correctly!

He's still pants to me!

[Keraulophone]

Controversiality

...was spoken this morning by the Rt Hon Harriet Harman QC MP, Mother of the House of Commons, on R4 Today (at 8.18 a.m.) during an interview with Nick Robinson. I have looked in vain for 'controversiality' [n] in the online Collins, Chambers 21st Century, Cambridge and Oxford Advanced Learner's dictionaries, though the Free Dictionary/Wiktionary does have it as 'the quality or state of being controversial'. I find this use of the suffix -ity lazy and confusing. Has the use of 'controversy' gone out of fashion or does that word really mean something different? I couldn't even find 'controversiality' in Merriam-Webster.

Retiring Speaker John Bercow, whose deployment (to use one of his favourites) of colourful vocabulary in gleefully putting down misbehaving Members of the Commons has been a source of amusement for Private Eye-reading types, was variously referred to by Ms Harman during the interview as 'John BAR-cow' and 'John Ber-COW'. Is this longest-ever continuously-serving female Member of the House unaware of the customary pronunciation of Mr Speaker's name after his ten-years in the chair?

[vinteuil]

.

... but controversiality, 'the state of being controversial', is different from controversy, which refers to one specific example.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/controversiality

Anyhoo, most people don't pronounce 'controversy' in the way I think it shd be pronounced...

.

[Keraulophone]

controversiality ... is different from controversy, which refers to one specific example.

The context was:

"The controversiality around the Speaker, which you've reflected in your package, is because actually the executive doesn't want Parliament to have its say."

Speaker Bercow is and has been a controversial figure, but is he in a continual state of controversy, the cause of multiple controversies, or can the controversy (the word that most people might use here) surrounding the Speaker be regarded as a (singular) general condition?

Also, why is controversiality absent from the four reputable English dictionaries mentioned above? (I don't have access to the online OED proper; it's £90 for a peek.)

[vinteuil]

.

... I think, in the context you quote, the word required is indeed controversy.

And I hope it will be CONtroversy and not conTROVersy....


.

[LMcD]

.

... I think, in the context you quote, the word required is indeed controversy.

And I hope it will be CONtroversy and not conTROVersy....


.

If memory serves, Alistair Burnet - arguably the greatest of all TV newsreaders - used to refer to events in Cuventry. I have also occasionally heard 'controvasy' with a heavy emphasis on the 'o'.

[vinteuil]

If memory serves, Alistair Burnet - arguably the greatest of all TV newsreaders - used to refer to events in Cuventry. .

... well of course it's cuventry! as in cuvent garden.

I have a friend who hails from Coventry who maintains that now-a-days it is co ventry. I have to tell him, again and again, that that may be what some people say - but he and they are WRONG.




.

[vinteuil]

I have also occasionally heard 'controvasy' with a heavy emphasis on the 'o'.

... but which o ??

[LMcD]

... but which o ??

Sorry - the 2nd.

[vinteuil]

Sorry - the 2nd.

... I know. Many people do this.

They are, of course, wrong.


.

[alycidon]

We live in a society where virtually anything is permissible, so why not make up your own words. Doesn’t matter that you can’t be understood - why, that’s all part of the fun!