It's pronounced like the "G" in "GIF"

May 28, 2018 6:31 AM

Sopan Deb:

THIS IS AMAZING. Per @reidepstein and @Maddie_Marshall, we've all been saying gerrymandering wrong our whole lives!

Or maybe not.
posted by Johnny Wallflower (39 comments total)

Main link is paywalled.
posted by pompomtom at 6:43 AM on May 28, 2018

Here's the opening snippet from the WSJ paywalled link.

Two hundred years after a cartoonist used Elbridge Gerry’s name to skewer political cartography, Mr. Gerry’s descendants think it’s time people start pronouncing it right.

The issue is whether to say “gerrymander” with a soft G, the way nearly everybody does, or with a hard G as in Gary—the way Mr. Gerry himself did.

“I correct people, every time,” said Elbridge T. Gerry Jr. , a limited partner at Brown Brothers Harriman and great-great-great-grandson of the late New England politician. “Then I give them a little history lesson.”

The first Elbridge Gerry signed the Declaration of Independence, was an important figure in adding the Bill of Rights to the Constitution and ended his career as vice president to James Madison.

He’s not remembered for any of that. Instead, his name is indelibly linked to the drawing of political districts for partisan advantage in 1812 when he was governor of Massachusetts.

With two gerrymandering cases currently before the Supreme Court, plus scores of Democratic candidates dedicated to winning legislative map-drawing power away from Republicans, Mr. Gerry’s legacy is receiving more attention than it had in decades.

To his descendants, a soft-G gerrymander is like hearing fingernails on a chalkboard. They write to dictionaries asking for corrections, inform strangers of their linguistic error and grow annoyed when telemarketers call to ask for Mr. Gerry with a soft G.

“Think of the letters,” said Ronald Gerry, a retired insurance salesman in Stony Brook, N.Y., who is a descendant. “Gerry—it has a hard G. Jerry sounds like a J.”

posted by chris24 at 6:51 AM on May 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

But the g in gif is a soft g.
posted by AFABulous at 6:55 AM on May 28, 2018 [11 favorites]

Elbridge T. Gerry Jr. Must be a lot of fun at parties.
posted by mondo dentro at 7:07 AM on May 28, 2018 [16 favorites]

Jraphicsmandering
posted by tobascodagama at 7:08 AM on May 28, 2018 [8 favorites]

Just another example of how language is beyond our control, always has been. How lovely :)
posted by AnhydrousLove at 7:09 AM on May 28, 2018 [5 favorites]

Main link is paywalled.

Ah crap. I used the Facebook link because it worked for me. Try this: WSJ Facebook post.

The video plays, and that gives the gist.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:24 AM on May 28, 2018

I'm in the soft-g group for gif, like it's creators, but I really don't care how anyone else pronounces it and I've come to refer to anyone who feels the need to argue over how others are allowed to say it as a "gifsplainer."

Honestly, I can't say I've ever heard the word gerrymander said with a hard-g by anyone. At a certain point, it became not worth fighting. I can understand the family trying to preserve the name on its own, but as encapsulated in the term, it has long since escaped them.
posted by mystyk at 7:26 AM on May 28, 2018 [5 favorites]

Wait, the Facebook stuff was stripped out of the link after I posted the OP. Is that something the mods did?
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:27 AM on May 28, 2018

“I correct people, every time,” said Elbridge T. Gerry Jr.

Sounds a bit keyhotic.
posted by john hadron collider at 7:29 AM on May 28, 2018 [9 favorites]

Clearly the solution is to make Elbridge pronounce his last name "Jerry," Parks and Rec-style.
posted by The Gaffer at 7:37 AM on May 28, 2018 [6 favorites]

Mod note: Ah, hrm. Yeah, we'll sometimes strip tracking cruft etc. out of urls in posts when we see it, which is what happened earlier this morning; if it's a situation where the only way to route around a paywall for a post is to include crufty-looking stuff, that's a tricky one. Probably better in general to aim for a different link outright when constructing a post in that case.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:38 AM on May 28, 2018 [2 favorites]

“Gerry—it has a hard G. Jerry sounds like a J.”

Considering Gerry is usually short for Gerald (or Geraldine -- Ferraro specifically), I think the soft g is a winner in that (silly) example.
posted by elsietheeel at 7:39 AM on May 28, 2018 [6 favorites]

Ah, hrm. Yeah, we'll sometimes strip tracking cruft

ಠ_ಠ

Could you put the Facebook page link in the OP instead?

https://www.facebook.com/wsj/posts/10157801386043128

(I did try to find a non-paywalled link but failed)
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:42 AM on May 28, 2018

Archive.today link for the WSJ story. (Courtesy of the Get Archive Firefox addon, which makes this little workaround easy.)

I love how the second link appeals to the rules of English spelling as a guide for pronunciation, yielding soft-G. And then moves to a general etymological argument about Germanic vs Romance languages, yielding hard-G. English is better defined by its inconsistencies than its adhesion to these rules. And in this case we have the literal exact etymology at our fingertips, a person's name. It's not really ambigous.

OTOH I will keep saying "jerrymandering". I keep saying "Carnegie", too, despite the best efforts by the socialists at NPR to switch me to "Carnegie".
posted by Nelson at 7:48 AM on May 28, 2018 [2 favorites]

Mod note: Sure thing, done.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:52 AM on May 28, 2018

“I correct people, every time,” said Elbridge T. Gerry Jr. , a limited partner at Brown Brothers Harriman and great-great-great-grandson of the late New England politician. “Then I give them a little history lesson.”

Hah. Nice work WSJ writer. I’d have settled for grim, gruesome Grendel, but yours makes a lot more sense in context.
posted by notyou at 8:32 AM on May 28, 2018

I love how the second link appeals to the rules of English spelling as a guide for pronunciation, yielding soft-G. And then moves to a general etymological argument about Germanic vs Romance languages...


Heh.
posted by darkstar at 8:34 AM on May 28, 2018 [4 favorites]

John Mulaney's Grandma Schools Seth on Mispronouncing "Gerrymander"

Gerrymander bit starts 2 minutes in.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 8:58 AM on May 28, 2018 [5 favorites]

They write to dictionaries asking for corrections, inform strangers of their linguistic error and grow annoyed when telemarketers call to ask for Mr. Gerry with a soft G.

1) That’s not how dictionaries work. Dictionaries are merely a record of usage. If everyone is saying it the wrong way, then it’s the wrong way that goes in the dictionary.

2) That’s not how the letter G works. Before complaining that everyone’s pronouncing it wrong, try spelling it right.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:03 AM on May 28, 2018 [3 favorites]

But the g in gif is a soft g.

Jimme a break!
posted by Sys Rq at 9:05 AM on May 28, 2018 [8 favorites]

"It's Garymander"

"No it's not."

Oooooooooooooo - fight! fight! fight! fight! fight! fight! fight!
posted by From Bklyn at 9:07 AM on May 28, 2018

And in this case we have the literal exact etymology at our fingertips, a person's name. It's not really ambiguous.

But lots of eponymous words aren't pronounced exactly like their namesakes: braille, Cyrillic, pavlova, etc. "Spelling pronunciations" based on the overall patterns of English are normal (and pace Mr. Gerry's descendants, g before e is more often soft than hard).
posted by aws17576 at 9:21 AM on May 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

It's almost as if language prescriptivism doesn't really work.
posted by Nelson at 9:34 AM on May 28, 2018 [11 favorites]

It's kind of interesting, certainly interesting enough to justify this fpp, but definitely not "AMAZING." I assume Johnny Wallflower included the tweet with the "Amazing" part as a perfectly responsible way of acknowledging a source (the tweet). But it's an example of something that activates my inner grumpy old man --

The modern trend of not sharing a thing by itself, but sharing a screenshot of a social media post about the link, Russian-doll-nested inside a series of gushing phrases, telling me how to react to it, like "THIS IS AMAZING" or "i will never not reblog this" or "this gives me life" or "SCREAMING." Tumblr being the main culprit.
posted by edheil at 10:03 AM on May 28, 2018 [3 favorites]

“Think of the letters,” said Ronald Gerry, a retired insurance salesman in Stony Brook, N.Y., who is a descendant. “Gerry—it has a hard G. Jerry sounds like a J.”

Noted. I will call his ancestor /ɛl brɪd gɘ/ /gæri/ from now on.
posted by otherchaz at 10:38 AM on May 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

Seems like a bit of distance between your name and a generally negative phenomenon might be a welcome thing.

Descendants can still tell the story at parties and dress up as salamanders on Halloween.
posted by trig at 10:39 AM on May 28, 2018 [3 favorites]

It's almost as if language prescriptivism doesn't really work.

I'd call it quixotic.
posted by ODiV at 1:15 PM on May 28, 2018 [2 favorites]

Do... do they think that people are honoring their ancestor? That gerrymandering is such a great invention that they should be happy that everyone credits it to Grandpa Elbridge?
posted by Etrigan at 1:36 PM on May 28, 2018

So we pronounce it like Spongebob's pet snail and not like Dick Van Dyke's brother? And I kind of liked occasionally telling politics-mavens "and (soft g) gerrymander as The Beaver".

I'm beginning to believe we should provide penalties including fines and periods of forced silence for making a G sound like a J... also for making a C sound like either a K or an S; that letter should be dropped entirely and maybe replaced by þ. Yeah, þat sounds like þe way to go.
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:39 PM on May 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

I recently realized I pronounce "regex" with a soft 'g' despite the hard 'g' in "regular."
posted by Obscure Reference at 3:27 PM on May 28, 2018 [3 favorites]

They're all saying it wrong, Gerrey! Gorge is jetting anjry!
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 5:03 PM on May 28, 2018

I recently realized I pronounce "regex" with a soft 'g' despite the hard 'g' in "regular."

How would you pronounce "regelar" though?
posted by elsietheeel at 5:09 PM on May 28, 2018

Hold on, here. How people communally choose to pronounce a world IS the final authority. There ain't no other.

And we battle that out by saying it how we want until. I will say 'maaaah-dum', not 'moe-dum' until my final breath.

Which reminds me; I haven't heard 'toe-maaah-toe' or 'poe-taaaah-toe' for a generation. It's 'may' and 'tay'. So that one's over, all youse upper-east-side types.
posted by Twang at 6:19 PM on May 28, 2018

I haven't heard 'toe-maaah-toe'

Have you been outside the US?
posted by elsietheeel at 6:22 PM on May 28, 2018 [2 favorites]

I will say 'maaaah-dum', not 'moe-dum' until my final breath.

You are utterly, utterly alone in that, mo’em.
posted by Sys Rq at 6:44 PM on May 28, 2018 [3 favorites]

Arthur Chu got picked up for this once in Jeopardy (getting the question wrong for pronouncing it 'Jerry' rather than 'Gerry'). I would link it but can't find any videos that include it that doesn't have some weird anti-Chu focus, including what seems to be the official Jeopardy channel.
posted by womb of things to be and tomb of things that were at 8:19 PM on May 28, 2018

The solution is to accept both soft and hard Gs and not attempt to "correct" people for pronouncing a word in a way that adds no ambiguity to their message.

Unless they're doing the hard G in GIF, then it's gloves off
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:47 AM on May 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

But lots of eponymous words aren't pronounced exactly like their namesakes

James Prescott Joule pronounced his name "jowl", but try saying "mega-jowl" at a scientific conference and people will think you're a nitwit
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:49 AM on May 29, 2018 [1 favorite]