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Is there a radio equivalent of the AP Stylebook?
The AP Stylenook says that one should refer to someone in the manner they choose to name themserves. Thus, when Cassius Clay changed his name, news stories immediately started referring to him by his new name, although stories usually mentioned his former name. Cherilyn Sarkasian became Cher, not using the surname Bono after a while, nor the surname Allman at all, and Roseanne Barr dropped her surname through a series of marriages to Tom Arnold, Mr Thomas, and if I recall right, others.
And the policy became strained when Prince Rogers Nelson became just Prince, then for a while referred to himself as a one character name not found in the Latin-V charset, and which he himself could not pronounce. I presume the financial burden of being impossible to search by name in order to stream his music played a part in his decision to once aghain be Prince.
But why is celtic pronounced kell-tick except when referring to a member of the Boston basketball team founded in 1946? Presumably, that's because that's because team ownership has always referred to themselves that way, and at this point, it'd be difficult to change the pronunciation.
But why was it pronounced that way in the first place? Was the founder ignorant of the pronunciation? Did he choose to pronounce it that way to attract attention? Were there others using that pronunciation? Did the front office hope to "sell tick(et)s"?
And is there a stylebook for the spoken language that says to use the pronunciation that is used by a person or entity in referring to itself?
Under the Common Law, one is allowed to call oneself anything one desires, as long as there is no intent to commit fraud, without court approval. It is my contention that the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. act, in curtailing that right, is unconstitutional under the 9th Amendment of the COTUS. There is much about that law that I find disturbing, and in violation of Amendment IX, but without that limitation on name canges, much of the rest of the PA becomes unworkable.
So why aren't we referring to the Boston Kell-tix? Is this something that comes from reading a word many times before hearing it spoken? (I struggle with embryro, tending to make it em-Bry-row mentally and having to struggle to vocalize it as EMB-bree-owe publicly, because of that initially-text introduction to the word.)
I wish I could remember where it was – I recently heard a linguist who pronounced Celtic SELL-tik. Most dictionaries seem to give both pronunciations. It seems that the Celtic peoples did not call themselves Celts, and that the term may have entered English by way of French, where the c had the s sound, and was browbeaten by scholars into the k sound; or it may have come in from both the French (s) and Greek/Latin (k). I don't know which is right, but it seems that neither is wrong. I learned the s version, but was browbeaten by scholars into using the k, which I still use.
I've always used "sell-tics" for the team, because that's the way I heard it pronounced while I was growing up. Only later, perhaps in high school where I was introduced to Old English and Chaucer was I taught to say "kelll-tic."
As Tromboniator notes, most dictionaries list both versions. But let's not forget the basketball team chose that name as a "logo/trademark." They are obviously not of Celtic heritage. Nor were the original starters. So they can pronounce it any way they want. I still use "sell-tic" for the team, and "kell-tic" for the culture.
I can't recall where I read this, but I believe that the oldest known pronunciation is with the "s" sound. Of course the Celtic culture is older than the oldest known pronunciation. Through the years popularity of "s" or "k" has changed back and forth and in the U.S. "k" is now in vogue. When the basketball team was formed, "s" was in vogue so they hung on to their original pronunciation.
This observation has nothing to do with proper names but in common English words, a "ce" at the beginning of a word always has the "s" sound. People who are familiar with that rule (even subconsciously) would find it hard to naturally speak it with the "k" sound.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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