Faviconography

Three loosely related topics in this post:

A) Nancy Friedman at Away With Words has posted on a recent trend of bubbles popping up everywhere.

2) In a comment I mentioned favicons and she hadn't heard of them. Those are the little icons in the address bar that change on each webpage. They are often used as logos in toolbar button links. I've struggled with the pronunciation of these little visual gewgaws. Does the first syllable rhyme with save or with salve? Does the second syllable preserve the "long" 'I' of icon or does the third syllable get secondary stress so that the "I" is an unstressed schwa? Some possible pronunciations I imagine:

1. [ˈfej.vɪ.kan]/[ˈfej.və.kan](similar)


2. [ˈfej.ˌvaɪ.kan]


3. [fej.ˈvaɪ.kan]


4. [ˈfæ.vɪ.kan]/[ˈfæ.və.kan]

Number two is what I imagine most people say because it's the closest to the two words being combined: fave and icon. However it's an awkward rhythm because it puts two diphthongs together which draws a stress to both syllables but it's a little unsettling to have two near equal stresses right next to each other. It's packing a phrasal contour into one word. It feels awkward to me.

So if I didn't know what the etymology or meaning of the word was I would guess it was pronounced as #4. Perhaps this preference is by analogy: Rubicon opticon Farrakhan comicon decepticon...

Last)As I mentioned in my comment to Friedman's post I've been looking for a decent 'favicon' to associate with this blog. Just a little image that looks good in the address bar. For some reason one image keeps staring at me. But it has nothing to do with my usual topics and I don't know why I'd pick it.

Nabokov Schmabokov

It's 'naBOKov'

John Wells has given us some entertaining guidance regarding the pronunciation of Vladimir Nabokov (i.e. the pronunciation of his name/s of course). I grew up thinking it was a dactylic dimeter. And by "grew up" I mean from the time I first heard the name in junior high from my sister who loved Sting and decided to learn more about Nabokov after hearing his name in the song "Don't Stand So Close to Me."

3 poems to make the point that each name is not a dactyl. Lines 1-3 of each stanza are dactylic dimeter. One line has to be a single word. Lines 4 and 8 must rhyme. (These were the regulations of the New Statesman competition. The third poem below was the winning entry.

Humberty-nymphety,
VN the novelist
Wrote of a passion pro-
scribed by the law.

Careful! His names must be
Stressed à la russe, i.e.
Paroxytonically:
("...dímir Nabó...").
-Nigel Greenwood

The next one is in Dutch. The rhythm is the same so you should be able to "utter" it and hear how it works. I'm assuming the "Na-" of "Nabokov" in the final line is orphaned from the second dactyl in the preceding line. Translation follows:

Vlinder- en kindervriend
Vladimir Nabokov...
Lezer, uw uitspraak doet
Pijn aan mijn oor.

Volgens de Russische
Intelligentsia
Moet het Vladimir
Nabokov zijn hoor!

Translation:
Lover of butterflies and children,
'Vladimir 'Nabokov...
Reader, your pronunciation
hurts my ear.
According to the Russian
intelligentsia,
it ought to be Vla'dimir Na'bokov!
-Jan Kal

The winning entry:

Higgledy piggledy
Vladimir Nabokov —
Wait! Hasn't somebody
made a mistake?

Out of such errors, Vla-
dimir Nabokov would
sesquipedalian
paragraphs make.

Why should we care? Only because Nabokov himself cared. Wells writes: "Apparently Nabokov himself characteristically liked to point out that his first name rhymed with Redeemer."