Friday, March 23, 2007

Jose Maria WHO???

I was listening to the PGA Tour on XM Satellite Radio channel 146, and I noticed something...

Has anyone ever HEARD Jose-Maria Olazabal say his full name in person, or on television?

Reason I'm asking is because I wonder if all of the announcers pronounce his surname with a pronounced "lithp" (Oh-la-THAW-ball), instead of with a "fricative z" like I learned back in Spanish class....

Could Jose have a bit of a lisp, and the announcers are attempting to pronounce his name the way he does phonetically???

They sound really, um, GOOFY (kinda PATRONIZING, actually) when they say it like that....

1 comment:

Miranda said...

I think it's supposed to be a 'th' sound. In my high school spanish class, my teacher said that in parts of Spain, the letter Z was pronounced like 'th'. He said that in Mexico it's pronounced the other way. Interestingly, European announcers and some players pronouce it 'z' and American announcers go with the 'th' sound. You'd think it would be the other way.