Friday, January 05, 2007

Boise - in Idaho, you know?

Boise – heck I don’t even know how to pronounce the name. There seems to be an awful lot of dispute about it, especially by outsiders. (Of which I am one.)

Boise, in Idaho, ya know? Anyway, some pronounce it boy-zee, and some boy-see. I would have took one look at it and been very Gallic and pronounced it bwahzz, but plainly I’m in the minority there.

What do I want to pronounce it for anyway? Well, it’s good to go through life saying words the way they was meant to be said, ain’t it? And who wants to be like those guys in the Bible who missed out on a few more years on the planet by getting Shibboleth wrong (or was it Shibbolet?)

In one blog I came across, there seems to be a further option to the pronunciation: Boyz. As we’re told here: "I told him I was headed to Boise City, being careful to pronounce Boise as "Boyz" as I was instructed by the manager at the KOA we stayed at previously. He gives me directions in between puffs on his cigarette. I thank him for taking the time to stop."

So there we go: four options so far. Any more on the horizon? The interesting thing about the boy-see, boy-zee thing is that we have a friend, originally from South Africa, who delights in calling her seven boys collectively by the name boys-ee. Totally irrelevant piece of information, but I thought I’d fit it in somewhere.

No comments: