A Pet Peeve

Daryn, Jose Padilla’s name is pronounced pa-DEE-ya not pa-DILL-uh. For future reference, with Spanish words ending in -illa, think “tortilla” not “gorilla”.


posted by greg on July 19, 2005 @ 8:07 am

10 comments

  1. No doubt she’s just pronouncing it the way she heard Rush pronounce it.

    Comment by ajm — July 19, 2005 @ 9:12 am

  2. Technically, that’s true for guerilla too, but we Anglophones continue to insist on mispronouncing it.

    Comment by Mathwiz — July 19, 2005 @ 9:19 am

  3. True, but “guerilla” is one of those instances where the correct sounding sucks compared to the English homophonic version. It’s a little known law of international languages that whenever a word sounds cooler in another language than it does in the OG language, the world must agree to pronounce it in the cooler fashion. it’s in the U.N. charter, if I’m not mistaken.

    That’s why the Spanish language name “Juan” is pronounced in every other language as “Jam Master Jay.”

    Kidding, kidding, I swear!

    Comment by Ross A Lincoln — July 19, 2005 @ 10:08 am

  4. i like to pronounce “gorilla” like “tortilla.” it’s more fun.

    Comment by tomN! — July 19, 2005 @ 10:58 am

  5. Actually, I recall an NPR Morning Edition in which it was observed that Padilla had requested that reporters pronounce his name “Pa-dill-a.” I can’t find that report now, but listen to this one to hear them pronouncing it “Pa-dill-a” last February, whereas the previous summer they were were saying “Pa-dee-yah.”

    Comment by E-mart — July 19, 2005 @ 11:53 am

  6. I’m backing up E-mart. I remember Randi Rhodes doing a whole segment on the correct pronounciation, as requested by Padilla himself. She went on about how the press had been pronouncing it wrong for over a year because no one was allowed to speak to him to even know.

    Comment by shayera — July 19, 2005 @ 4:59 pm

  7. Yup, I heard NPR say it the stupid-sounding way all day today.

    Comment by Mr Furious — July 19, 2005 @ 9:12 pm

  8. Pronuncations of Spanish vary from place to place within the language. I may be wrong but my understanding is that in places such as Puerto Rico, the LL is often pronounced with an “L” sound, so Padilla would in fact be “Padila” and the Y is also pronounced with a sort of “jy” sound, so that yo sounds like “zjyo”.

    Comment by Ross A Lincoln — July 20, 2005 @ 6:42 am

  9. So is my browser mo-ZILL-a or mo-ZEE-ya?

    Comment by tom — July 20, 2005 @ 9:13 am

  10. The name Mozilla had been used internally as a codename for the Netscape Navigator web browser from its beginning. It was a contraction of Mosaic killer, referring to the hope that the project would unseat Mosaic as the web’s most popular browser, and a reference to the name of the fictional monster Godzilla.

    Comment by Ross A Lincoln — July 20, 2005 @ 12:09 pm

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