Pronouncing your favorite writer’s name

February 14, 2013, by

Inprint Michael ChabonOne of the reasons I wanted to go to Michael Chabon’s reading was to hear Inprint Executive Director Rich Levy pronounce the writer’s name.

More than a few times over the years I’d been — well, disabused of the pronunciation of a word I had come across reading but never heard aloud.

The first was “expletive.” I was 17, and I was in the habit of passing up chances to cuss by substituting a phrase I must have seen in Reader’s Digest, or something like that: “Expletive deleted.”

But I pronounced the word so it rhymed: “ex-PLEET-ive.” Continue reading