From DR. BOLI’S ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MISINFORMATION.

Carnegie Hall

New York.—Scientists have recently focused on certain minerals in the otherwise excellent New York water supply as the possible cause of a congenital speech defect that renders native New Yorkers unable to pronounce the name “Carnegie.”

Comments

  1. von Hindenburg says:

    When I was in Scotland on my honeymoon, my wife and I stopped into a library, as one does on their honeymoon.
    This being a Carnegie library, I asked the person at the desk how to pronounce the name over the door. It was a great vindication when he answered in the correct (Pittsburgh) fashion.

    • Occasional Correspondent says:

      You rely, of course, on both the knowledge and good will of your informant.  I recall a Benny Hill skit in which an Englishman (Hill) and his wife are vacationing in Hawaii.  The Hill character insists that the state’s name is properly pronounced Havaii while the wife insists on Hawaii.  Hill finally hails a passerby who we are to presume is a local.  “Is this place called Havaii or Hawaii?”  “Havaii.”  “Thank you.”  “You’re velcome.”  Hopefully your Scotsman was not yanking your Yankee leg.

      • Von Himdemburg says:

        Well, if you can’t trust a reference librarian, who can you trust?

        I think we can at least assume good will as he answered before the shock of such an odd question would have faded enough to permit him to come up with anything but the truth.

        • Occasional Correspondent says:

          Your interpretation is probably true.  However, keep in mind that a reference librarian conducting a reference interview has heard most questions a hundred times and may well have an idea where this is going and where it could be made to go.  As you pronounced the word “How…”, the librarian thought “Not from around here.  American probable.”  As you uttered “…do you…” and your body ever so slightly turned in the direction of the door, the librarian thought “Oh, question # 122c, how do you pronounce that name over the door?  I could have some fun with this.”  By the time you finished, the librarian could say, “Oh, around here we pronounce that name Quackenbush” and you would return home to tell all your friends, “You’ll never know what I found out on my trip to Scotland.”  (Margaret Mead found out how this works the hard way.)

          • von Hindenburg says:

            I’ll say that, during my time as a librarian in the early 2000’s, that no matter how many times you had to tell people where the restroom was, where the homeless shelter was, how to file their taxes, how to use the internet, to stop looking up porn on the library’s internet, how to use a dictionary, or spend an entire afternoon buzzing through microfilm newspapers, looking for the obituary of a great great grandparent who died sometime in the mid 20’s (or maybe 30’s)…. It was expected that you answered the question to the best of your ability.

    • heloise says:

      btw did the librarian say CARN e gie or car NEGG ie ?

      • Von Hindenburg says:

        NEG, of course

        • heloise says:

          Car-NEG-ee has always sounded to me like something that should happen on a golf course — “I birdied the first two holes but then I ran into a carNEGGie on number three” or some such.

        • bad golfer says:

          or “On nine I had to use my CarNEGGie to get out of the weasel trap”

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