The Pronunciation of 10,000 Proper Names by Mary Stuart Mackey and Maryette Goodwin Mackey (review)

Book Reviews of all the major works as well as less important material such as the later lyrics and the prose sketches which contain some compositions that deserve comment. Furthermore, the author closely examines Rivas's own most important statement concerning aesthetic matters found in the Prologue of his Romances históricos. All in all this book represents a solid introduction to Angel de Saavedra, the Duke of Rivas, for it is well conceived, clearly written, and conscientiously documented. By translating the pertinent passages from Spanish to English, Professor Lovett attracts those readers who are interested in Spanish romanticism but are not acquainted with the language. LEONARD T. PERRY, CIemson University Mary Stuart Mackey, and Maryette Goodwin Mackey. The Pronunciation of 10,000 Proper Names. New Edition. Detroit Gale Research Co., 1979. 329 p. The Pronunciation of 10,000 Proper Names features correct or closely approximate pronunciations for difficult-to-pronounce proper names in Arabic, French, German, Spanish, and eighteen other languages, including classical Greek and Latin. The first edition of this useful reference work included just over 10,000 proper names, and Gale has here reprinted the popular new edition of 1922, which lists about 12,000 proper names, a 20% bonus over the title's promise. The prefatory matter explains the various sigris, marks, and abbreviations used in the alphabetically ordered word list, and also discusses particular features of French, German, Spanish, and Italian pronunciation. This book, intended for the general reader rather than for the scholar or linguist, will also prove valuable to teachers of literature, since it includes names of many characters found in poetry and fiction, as well as foreign titles, famous biographical names, and geographical names common before about 1920. The pronunciation key on p. ix, similar to those found in The American Heritage Dictionary and other dictionaries, is not reproduced on the bottom of the text's facing pages, as in most dictionaries, but the phonetic symbols used are familiar and thus offset that omission. For example, Pope's Twickenham appears as twik-ên-àm — simple enough. For Greek proper nouns ending in -eus, both usual pronunciations are provided; for example, Odysseus appears as both o-dis-e-us and as o-dissus , but the book is sufficiently dated so that some widely used current variant pronunciations, such as e for Greek OE, as in ed-i-pus, naturally do not appear. Nevertheless this book overall will prove extremely useful, and Gale has done readers a service by making it once again available. JOSEPH F. TUSO, New Mexico State University 282VOL. 34, NO. 4 (FALL 1980) ...