What's really important

Her name.

Assimilated Pronunciation [Mark Krikorian]

So, are we supposed to use the Spanish pronunciation, so-toe-my-OR, or the natural English pronunciation, SO-tuh-my-er, like Niedermeyer? The president pronounced it both ways, first in Spanish, then after several uses, lapsing into English. Though in the best "Pockiston" tradition, he also rolled his r's in Puerto Rico.

By the way, can anyone point me to the video of the 1990 Saturday Night Live skit with Jimmy Smits where the news staff were doing ridiculously exaggerated pronunciations of "Neek-o-rah-gwa" and the like? I can't find it online or on DVD.

He wasn't done.

It Sticks in My Craw [Mark Krikorian]

Most e-mailers were with me on the post on the pronunciation of Judge Sotomayor's name (and a couple griped about the whole Latina/Latino thing — English dropped gender in nouns, what, 1,000 years ago?). But a couple said we should just pronounce it the way the bearer of the name prefers, including one who pronounces her name "freed" even though it's spelled "fried," like fried rice. (I think Cathy Seipp of blessed memory did the reverse — "sipe" instead of "seep.") Deferring to people's own pronunciation of their names should obviously be our first inclination, but there ought to be limits. Putting the emphasis on the final syllable of Sotomayor is unnatural in English (which is why the president stopped doing it after the first time at his press conference), unlike my correspondent's simple preference for a monophthong over a diphthong, and insisting on an unnatural pronunciation is something we shouldn't be giving in to.

Yes, there should be limits to permitting people to have names that are "unnatural in English."

What's especially amusing is that he goes on to write that somehow Sotomayor's name hindered the Princeton and Yale grad's ability to assimilate. Or something.