A couple of days of perfect weather and I got some sailing in both yesterday and today. With the Pilgrim in Spain and one daughter in L.A. and the other in Maryland I am flying solo these days.
Sailing yesterday with a great forecast for today I began thinking about leaving Spartina in the basin at the cruise ship terminal. It occurred to me to check the cruise ship schedule, an excellent idea that apparently was carried away by the fine breezes. I forgot to check. And coming over the bridge today I saw the cruise ship the size of a large building tied up on the waterfront. Passengers were disembarking. Do you know how long it takes a few thousand passengers to disembark from a ship? I do. Too long. But I did get to enjoy, once the ship was gone, a nice afternoon on the river.
I am starting to think everyone else is right and I am the only one who is wrong (the Pilgrim has suggested this more than a few times). Yesterday morning I was hailed by someone at the Waterside marina. They called out with the boat's name, Spartina, pronouncing it SPAR-teen-a. Virtually everyone pronounces it this way except for me. I say SPAR-tine-a (rhymes with Carolina). I'm going to stick with my pronunciation a while longer, but I'm starting to feel uncertain about it. Since I can't pronounce the name of my own boat correctly I am also starting to wonder about the design of the boat. Maybe it really is a Drascombe.
6 comments:
Steve, don't despair. Here are at least 5 different versions of the pronunciation..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVatUJd8gNQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8koMHq0r4I
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/spartina
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Spartina
And there's probably a few more you could hear. Good ol' spar-teen-er --got ta love her.
Your boat, you built it
so it strikes me you can pronounce it anyway you like
Steve
We are evolved enough to understand that Steve did not build it. We all built it--from the loggers, sawmillers, epoxy and paint producers to the highway maintenance and shipping folks and on to the ore miners/brad formers. Lest we forget the oystering community who kept him alive during construction!? We all deserve a vote. If you truly want to honor our communal effort, you will use pronunciation choice No. 6--"the people's choice"--SPARTY-NAY!
Don't forget that the way to pronounce the name of DancesWithSandyBottom's boat is "Thistle" :)
Maybe it's not your pronunciation so much but your spelling. Spartyna.
"Nice blog"
Dock 3 Waterside.
Thanks Dock 3. I've decided to go the "to each his own" path on pronunciation. Call the boat what you will, I call it Spartina with a long "i" and I'll also call it a lot of fun. steve
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