Ha! Saturday’s post on Kwixott and ‘Mumbai’ provoked (as I had hoped) outrage, howls of derision, accusations of ignorance, and suggestions of colonialist insensitivity. Colonialist? Moi? (er, that, should be ‘me’). More seriously, it led a correspondent at Stanford to spill “some Mumbai gin on [his] Chennai-plaid shirt.”

Better, perhaps, to quote from allies such as Ron from Utah. He had this to say: “Shashi Tharoor went on at some length about “Mumbai” and similar idiocies in “India: from Midnight to the Millennium.” Incidentally, I

suppose you’re aware that Byron’s witty, hyper-sophisticated poem “Don Juan” has to be read with a no-nonsense English pronunciation in order to scan? “Juan” is pronounced “Joo-ann,” his mother Inez is pronounced “Eye-nez,” and yes, “Quixote” is pronounced “Quicks-ote.”

And for those who suggested that ‘Kwixott’ was somehow un-American, I can only repeat these comments from James in Nebraska that I posted the last time I turned to this exciting and important topic:

“I ransacked my house this a.m. for John Simon’s Paradigm’s Lost without success so I’ll have to rely on memory. I believe he gave his endorsement to the Funk and Wagnall’s Standard Dictionary of the English Language as the standard for American pronunciation…We have two editions (1945 and 1966) and both agree with you on the English pronunciation of Don Quixote. Interestingly, on foreign words they list the English pronunciation first, followed by the pronunciation in the original language, i.e. as distinct from the English pronunciation. Other examples from the same page: Donizetti (don-ah-zetee, not do-nee-dzetee), Don Juan (don joo-awn), Dordogne (dor-dawny)”

So there it is: Bombay, not modish Mumbai, Kwixott/Quicksote not the epicene and affected Ki-otay. Now, on to Pekin…