Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Uno

So we were out the other Friday night at the pub with a group of folks from church celebrating our friend Em's birthday, and somehow it came up that Sarah and I have been playing some Uno lately. Our pronunciation of the word Uno (oo no) set off a sort of debate between Australians of various geographical origins as to whether we were right or if it was pronounced like "you know." We were compeltely flabbergasted at this. It is utterly and completely obvious to us that the name of the game is derived from the spanish word uno, which in english is simply "one." When you have one card left, you say "uno," and hence the name of the game. I don't understand how such a large number of people could totally miss the connection between one and uno, and then think that the word uno should be pronounced with a long u. I could maybe see a short u, like in "under," "utter," or "up," resulting in "uh no." The only word I can think of offhand that has a long u at the beginning is use and it's derivations, which has an e after the consonant. Who knows. I can't believe we're going to have a child in this land of crazed mispronouncers.

5 comments:

Marsha Loftis said...

We pronounce it oo no, not you no!!! but hey does it really matter?

Anonymous said...

my canadian roommates called it 'you no' too! I thought that was just because they took French in high school instead of Spanish. odd.

:)

maria b

Sue & Paul Johnston said...

Ya, eh!

Anonymous said...

Well since the only place the spanish did much out there (i think) was the Philippines and it's not exactly connected by land I don't expect that they take much spanish in high school. In fact...what languages do they take down there in HS?
jason larman

Abner and Rosie Bauman said...

Congratulations! Talked to Mom Cooper at lunch today at UPBC and she told us about the blog. Sounds like you are having a good time.

Rosie and I arrived at UPBC yesterday afternoon after a 3,800 mile from Alaska. We have been at the North Star Bible Camp about 2 hours norht of Anchorage for a month help out. Had a great time; enjoyed Alaska. If you care you can read about it at: http://abrosienews.blogspot.com

Cherrio,
Abner and Rosie