dorothy moves to click her ruby shoes

today i did not fall asleep in class. i did all of my homework and turned it in. hooray. my gsi is gautam. i asked him how to pronounce his name and he replied that it rhymes with autumn, but it might sound weird with an american accent. accents are cool. british accents are cool. he says “lemmar” and “co-RO-llary.” corolla. is corolla a word, or just the name of the car? is it the root of corollary?

ryan and i have been playing much warcraft iii. i used to always beat him, but today he beat me twice! ahh!!! i think i stopped getting better a long time ago. hmmm. i will dream of night elves.

7 comments

  1. Hee. Have you seen the movie Spellbound, or heard of it? It’s a documentary about kids competing in the National Spelling Bee. One asks about the root of corollary, and whether it’s derived from the word corolla. When asked what they mean by corolla, this poor kid is all “Um…like the car?” and looks really embarassed.

    1. =)

      from http://www.m-w.com

      One entry found for corolla.

      Main Entry: co·rol·la
      Pronunciation: k&-‘rä-l&, -‘rO-
      Function: noun
      Etymology: New Latin, from Latin, diminutive of corona
      Date: circa 1753
      : the part of a flower that consists of the separate or fused petals and constitutes the inner whorl of the perianth
      – co·rol·late /k&-‘rä-l&t; ‘kor-&-“lAt, ‘kär-/ adjective

      and….
      One entry found for corollary.

      Main Entry: cor·ol·lary
      Pronunciation: ‘kor-&-“ler-E, ‘kär-, British k&-‘rä-l&-rE
      Function: noun
      Inflected Form(s): plural -lar·ies
      Etymology: Middle English corolarie, from Late Latin corollarium, from Latin, money paid for a garland, gratuity, from corolla
      Date: 14th century
      1 : a proposition inferred immediately from a proved proposition with little or no additional proof
      2 a : something that naturally follows : RESULT b : something that incidentally or naturally accompanies or parallels
      – corollary adjective

      so they are not related! hehee

    1. Re: autumn

      So, here’s Krishna the scholar, out to explain a bit. I hope this isn’t just more confusing… Hard to be phonetically accurate without pronouncing things for you…

      Americans usually say “AW-dum” for the word that Britishers usually pronounce as “OH-t’m” (the “OH” is the same one used in words like call — “COHL” and draw — “DROH”, a little more round and further back than our standard “o” phoneme; also, the symbol ‘ is meant to indicate that there is very little space between the two letters on either side of it).

      Damn, this is SO hard to do without phonetic symbols…

      At any rate, the name Gautam is a Sanskrit word, meaning “Remover of Darkness.” It is one of many names for Lord Vishnu (along with Krishna…), and was the name of Siddharta Gautama, later to become known as the Buddha, the “awakened one”.

      In Sanskrit, it would be pronounced “GOW-thum,” roughly… But it isn’t spelled that way according to English phonetics, so your GSI is used to simply assuming that you won’t be able to say it “properly”. Thus, the alternate form “GOH-t’m”.

      Most Indian people I know come up with some alternate form that may be easier for Westerners to pronounce.

      Cheers,
      -K

      P.S. Judy, please consider yourself invited to a “Welcome Home Shanshan and Krishna” party on Sunday evening at 7 at my friend Gurtej’s place, 1836 Arch St. Please let any DeCadence peepz know (as I don’t have anyone’s number yet, nor a phone(!), I’m letting my friends handle the inviting portion of things). If you need directions, please e-mail me.

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