Spelling pronunciation–rendering in sound a word’s spelling–is for obvious reasons a creature of literate societies (see posts by The Tensor and Bill Poser). Spain was until recently generally illiterate (unrelated stat: only 1 in 3 Spanish had cotton underwear in the 30s), and pronunciation spelling predominates. I referred a while back to some old examples of the transcription of Irish names, but many of my favourites are more recent, coming from the post-war economic boom, when emigrant and domestic consumers acquired foreign goods whose labels they couldn’t necessarily read. I often have coffee in a bar which advertises cut-price Katisak, and I recently didn’t purchase a second-hand Foksbagen. Google is unfazed, of course.

Categories: Les bourgeois

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