Help
Sign In
accent marks
November 2009 
A Rose by Any Other Name Might Sound Like Wienerschnitzel
Posted on Dec 10th, 2008
by 
Dryad
Dryad
It began because my files are in such a mess. I do not have a liner mind at all, and certainly not one that comprehends how to file things for easy retrieval. I am always naming files with interesting names that I can’t remember later. I’ve tried using the date first, but then I can’t remember when I wrote something. This is utterly bizarre, but it is the truth: sometimes it is faster for me to find something by Googling myself than it is to find it in the files in my computer. I wanted to tell someone about a birthday party I had done for my daughter using a poster by SARK. I knew it was on the web somewhere because I wrote it up once when I was in on an interview of SARK. I sure couldn’t find it in my files. Finally, I Googled my named & SARK and there it was.
http://www.outbackonline.net/choc%20box/choc_cross_Artist_%20Party.htm
SARK (Susan) loved my party, by the way.
I don't remember what I was looking for when disaster struck, but I put in Edwina Peterson Cross and among the various things - this came up:
edwina
ACK!!!!
DOUBLE ACK!!!
DOUBLE ACK!!!
OH. MY. GOD. WHAT IS THIS?!? I didn't know what it was, but I got a very uneasy feeling somewhere in the area of my . . . (lets see what do I have left?) Pancreas. I was especially upset by the one with the purple crayon. I used to write my name like that - with the N backwards. All in caps. I've even written a poem about it. How did they know? And what if it has something to do with Harold? We had some trouble at our house the LAST time Harold and his purple crayon got loose. (It’s rated X, see me if you’d like particulars.)
I was so uneasy about the whole thing that I sort of blocked it out and I never chased it around trying to find out more. But it kept lurking there, making me feel squemey. A week or so ago for some reason, the squemey over took me and I started looking to see if I could find out more. And, of course, most unfortunately, I did.
http://www.mtishows.com/show_home.asp?ID=000212
I went to this page and I immediately became nauseous and had to find my purple bowl. It is pretty drastic. Thirteen year-old Edwina Spoonapple would do just about anything to be a part of the Kalamazoo Advice-a-palooza Festival. Oh lord!! Cute Edwina Spoonapple (gag) has two best friends; Becky " A Perky and Enthusiastic Cheerleader" and Kelli, a "Cool and sophisticated ballerina."
Is someone doing this to torture me? Could something this horrible possibly be a coincidence? Is this someone involved with this some arch nemesis from my past who has caught up with me and discovered the ultimate way to torture me?
I spent a couple of shaky minutes reading this fascinating plot and the description of the songs . . . about how to set the table correctly and RSVP, say "No Thank You" and act like a lady. If you don't get the spoons and forks in the right place at the table, you are worth nothing. Someone should take you to the Sheriff and make sure you are destroyed.
My major emotion at this point was a deep and horrible sense of impending doom. There are two songs in the song list that have my name in them. One is 'Dear Edwina' the other 'Edwina.' A profound fear had begun to sink it's snarky, slobbering teeth into my heart. Some of the songs have clips, neither of the 'Edwina' songs do, but . . . But. I know somewhere that you can find anything. Yes, it's true. With a heavy heart - full of snarky, slobbering teeth marks - I drug myself with quaking fingers over to U-Tube. And there it was.
Edwina
Oh, lord.
"Dear Edwina, the Musical." It's like a bad parody of Waiting for Guffman. Choreographed by someone who was stoned on Nyquel. All along, however, I knew that the worst part was coming, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I'm not kidding now. When the poor child with the voice that is cracking, began to warble and then screech the horrible massacre of my given name, I was so freaked that I screamed. My hands were shaking and I couldn't find the place to push to make it stop. It just kept going, screeching and shrilling and shrieking. Immediately, I'm right back in Elementary School and David Bahler and all those other stupid boys - and several girls as well - are all singing it at me. Like when they called me EdWeenie and EdWienerschnitzel (If you are out there Bahler, you know you did.)
Now, I’m afraid to even go into this, because of the horrible thought that came with it. It’s a thought I have never had before, though I can’t imagine why.
Let me explain: My name is Ed-WIN-ah. I was named after my father whose name was Ed-WIN. All you do is put an “A” on the end. Ed-WIN-ah. For some reason, however, people look at my name and say: Edweeeeeena. I can’t imagine why. You can NOT get weeeeeen out of WIN. It is impossible in English. My father was not named Edweeen. There IS a variation on my name which is spelled Edweena. That one is pronounced with a double ee sound. My name is not. Still. Every receptionist at ever doctor’s office, when it is my turn, sings out “Edweeeeena?” “It’s EdWINa.” I tell them. “Oh! Sorry.” Sometimes people really get snippy when you tell them they have pronounced your name wrong, as if it were a social faux pas. It doesn’t matter anyway, because the next time you go there and it is your turn, the same person will say, “Edweeeeeeena?”
When I started Junior High (which was a bad idea anyway) I went from having one teacher who had known me since Kindergarten to seven teachers who didn’t know me from Adam. Or Edweeena. After about two months of saying over and over, “It’s EdWINa,” one day I just woke up and I was Winnie. It’s a silly name, but not for an eleven-year-old. My family had always called me Wina - or the obvious: Pooh. Pooh didn’t seem like a good choice, for also obvious reasons. I went with Winnie because every one else at this time was named Sandi, Gerri, Suzi, Meri, Etci. I left the “e” on the end - rather than becoming Winni - because, while being an almost adolescent who wanted to sound like everyone else, I never was a complete conformer. I started to write it on my papers, people picked it up easily, and in about another month I was Winnie - where I remained for a long time.
I got married young. Actually ‘Winnie Peterson’ is a little whiney, but it lasted less than ten years and ‘Winnie Cross’ works just fine. My first publications were done under the name ‘Winnie Peterson,’ and then ‘Winnie Cross.’ Somewhere along the way, I began to think that the name didn’t really sound right for a poet. Besides, I wanted my own name back. I love my name, when it is pronounced correctly.
When I told my Daddy that I had decided to use my entire name for publication purposes, he cried. He said that he had never really felt bad about my using a nick-name, but he was really happy that I would go down in publication eternity as “Edwina.” I decided that it would be acceptable to use my entire name by counting the syllables in ‘Marion Zimmer Bradly.’ ‘Edwina Peterson Cross’ has exactly the same number. I figured if MZB could do it, so could I.
Here it comes. The thought that for some reason never entered my head. I am a multi-published writer - most of it poetry. I don’t count, but it’s up in the 400+ range. While the poor adolescent child was warbling my name wrong, for some reason, I suddenly realized that there were people all over everywhere who had READ my name in print and very possibly . . . VERY possibly said “Edweeeena Peterson Cross” in their head. Or when speaking to someone else about a poem. Or whatever. Which is why I screamed.
I’d like to think that the penchant to pronounce an ‘i’ as a double ‘ee’ is limited to doctor’s receptionists, nurses and Junior High teachers. I’m afraid that is faulty logic. I’m sorry, but given my experience with people who pronounce my name out loud and given the percentage that pronounce it wrong - I can expect that probably the majority of the people who have read my work, think that it was written by an atrocious, overeducated weenie.
I said to my daughter, “I'm going to have to go back to using ‘Winnie’. I can't stand the thought of anyone looking at it and pronouncing it like that in their head.” Unfortunately, it is just a little late for that realization. Besides, I don’t want to. I suppose I could start using one of my nom de plume’s as my major signature. But you can’t really do that, it would mix every one up and besides it takes all the fun out of a nom de plume if it isn’t . . . plume. Why didn’t I ever think of it before? Wishful thinking? Mind block? Stupidity?
Technically, any vowel that is not marked with a macron - which is the straight line that denotes a long vowel - is always pronounced as a short vowel. Short i makes the sound that begins the word "India" or "idiom." Even if it were a long vowel, it would make the sound of "Eye" which would give you Ed-W-EYE-N-ah. That is also drastic, but I only remember that happening once or twice in my life. I checked several different sites and I am correct - when the name is spelled "Edwina" there is NO way to pronounce it but Ed-WIN-ah ~ the feminine of the name Edwin, Edwin with an a on the end. Edwin-a. There is no way to get the long E sound from the way my name is spelled. But the majority of people do it anyway.
I decided that thought there wasn’t anything I could do about what is already out there, I had to do something for the future. I toyed around with Edwyna. I like the way it looks and it would be less likely to be pronounced wrong. Edwyna Peterson Cross In the end, however, it is not my name. I was given my father's name and I am very proud of that. It is the feminine of my brother's name, something we have shared for our entire lives. It was my Great-Grandfather's name - I was named for Charles Edwin Loose, and I am proud of that as well. Most of all, however, it was my Daddy's name, which I was given to me, with love, by my mother. I want to be able to use my own name, but I do NOT want anyone - even in their own head - to pronounce it ‘Edweeeena’. So. An accent mark.
Technically, this little half moon is called a breve ( ̆ ) and denotes the short sound of a vowel. So far, this is the best I can do. I'm going to keep working on it. It doesn't look bad here. The 'i' looks a little chunky in Word Perfect. It comes from Word Perfect: Insert/symbol/multi-national. In Microsoft Word the same thing is available under: Insert/symbol/Subset Latin Extended-A. Both Word Perfect and Microsoft Word have the breve by itself, but I can’t figure how to get it OVER the i. I takes a space by itself and so you get a space. There is, no doubt, a way to do that, but I haven't figured it out. Actually, most of the time I cut and paste it. When I write my name by hand, I will make the breve rather than dotting the 'i'.
My daughter looked at it and said, “it will never make a bit a difference. No one will notice the breve, and even if they do, they won’t know what it is.” Gnash. Gnash.
What do you think? If you know of a way of doing it that might be better and/or easier, please let me know.
©Edwĭna Peterson Cross
Ed-WIN-ah
Access: PublicTagged with: Names, Googling Myself, SARK, Dear Edwina, the Musical, Mispronunciation, Accent Marks?, What do you think?
Well you could just write it as you wish EDWINA (please pronounce the “i” as short not long). ;-) (((( ))))
You could call yourself Edwina “winner” Cross? I don’t know, sorry, that’s lame. Hmm, you have quite a tough one there, Dictionary.com pronounces it the way you hate, though your preferred alternative is there too, and that seems to be the pattern elsewhere online, at least the sites I found (I guess I am somehow getting different ones from those you found).
If you spelled it Edwinna, people would pronounce it better than Edwyna (which I think they would try to rhyme with diner)
Oh dear! English is so illogical in pronunciation!