Our lady
When I talk about the University of Notre Dame, I pronounce it "no-truh dame."
(This is due to Tom, a college roommate whose Notre Dame fandom and pronunciation rubbed off on me.) (Years later, that is — I didn't like the Golden Domers back then.) (Tom will be pleased to learn that I'm going to my first Notre Dame game later this year.)
Last week, Marnie instructed me that Notre Dame should be pronounced one of two ways:
• "no-ter dame"
• "no-truh dahm"
"Once you start to bastardize a term," Marnie told me, "just bastardize the whole thing. Don't do half and half."
Then she warned me, "But don't say 'no-truh dahm,' because that sounds pretentious."
So really, I'm left with only one way to say it — I don't have two choices after all.
3 comments:
Don't look at me. My fandom comes from my grandfather who saw Notre Dame as a counter-point to the anti-Catholicism he suffered through. If you think Irish-Americans care about how French people say things, you don't live in New England.
I was thinking about that when I was asking for directions to Worcester from Gloucester.
And to confuse things even more, the full name of the university is University of Notre Dame du Lac, or our lady of the lake. What makes this confusing is that there are actually two lakes on campus, but Fr. Sorin arrived in winter and one was completely covered by snow. By the time the spring thaw occured, the school's name was already set. Apparently he was under the impression that there are no take-backs in school naming.
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