From DR. BOLI’S ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MISINFORMATION.

Pepys, Samuel. In spite of his mother’s continued efforts and the intervention of the best voice coach in seventeenth-century London, Samuel Pepys was never able to pronounce his own name correctly.

Comments

  1. Jared says:

    Let us all concede that “Samuel” is a most challenging name to master. Fortunately the simplicity of his surname, at least, is partially compensatory; even the youngest chick freshly could enunciate it with scarce difficulty.

    • If only you had not elided the word “hatched”, this would be the most perfect reply in the history of the Internet. Or perhaps you meant to say “freshly bathed”, in which case the annoyed chirping would perfectly encapsulate the proper sense of indignation one must use when correcting someone else’s pronunciation of the surname “Pepys”.

      • Jared says:

        I cannot begin to express my utter dismay at having so narrowly failed to construct “the most perfect reply in the history of the Internet,” but I shall nonetheless attempt to confide my agony to a diary left to posterity, in which I shall also record the line as intended — thus effecting a sort of English Restoration.

  2. Alan Kellogg says:

    Why everybody knows how to pronounce “Pepys”; it’s “Ziffle-Marble-Whizbang” as any fool can plainly see.

    • Jared says:

      What fools can plainly see is often an occulted knowledge hidden from the rest of humanity. I oppose gnosticism in all its forms, but especially as pertains to the pronunciation of surnames.

  3. Greybeard says:

    I predict that by Thursday Next this will be a fiasco.

  4. Dr. Bjorn Bjornsen says:

    A shy young maid has took a room down at the Village Inn
    Her bedside light is oh so bright, and the curtains oh so thin
    At nine o’clock she changes clothes, at half past nine she sleeps
    Lord Clarendon walks quickly on, but naughty Samuel Pepys

Leave a Reply to Greybeard Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *