Easy for Someone to Say

You'd have to just be waking up from a long nap to suddenly hear that a volcano in 2010 is causing a bit of world-wide havoc with air travel.

I was at a Doo-Wop concert last night and one of the singers was waxing a bit nostalgic about things in the past. That's the whole point of going. But this fellow seemed to be missing something I didn't understand. He asked, "How did we ever get hooked on phonics?" There wasn't much reaction, because frankly, I don't think anyone knew what the hell he was talking about. Anyway, I guess it sounded like there was a simpler time when we weren't hooked on phonics. (Personally, I think we're hooked on talking heads and opinions, but I'll need my own act to advance that observation. And I can't sing.)

Anyway, because of the volcano that's erupting in Iceland we're once again getting news from that frost-bitten speck near the Arctic Circle.

Bobby Fischer's chess match with Boris Spassky in 1972 brought the place into world-wide consciousness, and a good number of us learned how to pronounce Reykjavik, the nation's capital and site of the match. Many years later Bobby Fischer's self-imposed exile in Reykjavik and his death there, along with the country's monetary collapse put the place back in the news. Now it's volcanic ash, and what it can do to jet engines.

Along with the volcano news we're struggling to learn how to pronounce the name of the town the volcano is in. It's not even easy to spell, let along pronounce, even with the aid of phonetic spelling. The name makes Icelanders seem like they're terrible at Scrabble and use the bottom of eye charts to create place names.

Hooked on phonics? If any of us were the phonetic spelling 'ay-yah-FYAH'-plah-yer-kuh-duhl' for Eyjafjallajokull should seem like trying to say 'cat.'

There are many European hockey players in the NHL, and ever since Team Canada vs. the Russians in 1972 I've tried and gotten better at pronouncing Russian, and now other Slavic names. I work my way through the letters, and usually emerge with near-correct pronunciation.

But if someone from Iceland named 'Eyjafjallalokull' were to make the NHL the lettering would start just about the left elbow, go across the shoulders, and end just above the right elbow.

Announcers would also likely hope he never touched the puck. They'd never have to try and say his name then.

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