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It's a bit like "tubist".

A handful of people - shortly after Bill Bell died (probably, his students) decided to get people to respect tuba players...so they formed an organization and coined a word. The problem is that the coined word is confusing, and - to this day - very few know what it means - after they ask "What do you do?" and someone answers, "I'm a tubist".

More musicians (particularly considering that the company ceased to exist nearly 70 years, ago, the the name ceased to be put on instruments by around a half century ago) will recognize "Busher" than any other (including the correct) pronunciation.

Pick one:

- communicating
- showing off re: being in the know (yet with no one being impressed)

arpthark wrote: ↑Sun Jul 30, 2023 3:48 pm

pjv wrote: ↑Sun Jul 30, 2023 3:38 pm Büscher.
On the other hand, who cares.
By the way, Google translate will help give you a pronunciation which at least will make you sound dashing and guarantee you a second date with your love interest.

Frau Büscher...?

Do any composers ask for a horse hwynny on a tuba, much like the trumpet at the end o sleigh ride for example?

Trombonists pronounce it a little differently. Bl"yuck"sher, I think it goes. With or without the German accent. Great candidates for the Applebees wall band.

bone-a-phone wrote: ↑Mon Jul 31, 2023 10:57 am Trombonists pronounce it a little differently. Bl"yuck"sher, I think it goes. With or without the German accent. Great candidates for the Applebees wall band.

Right up there with famed American makers J.W. Yurk and Sons, Con, Retcholds, stinKing, and Kan't-stool. And in Europe, don't forget BS, Merelyphone, and Won'tson.

bloke wrote: ↑Sun Jul 30, 2023 4:04 pm It's a bit like "tubist".

A handful of people - shortly after Bill Bell died (probably, his students) decided to get people to respect tuba players...so they formed an organization and coined a word. The problem is that the coined word is confusing, and - to this day - very few know what it means - after they ask "What do you do?" and someone answers, "I'm a tubist".

More musicians (particularly considering that the company ceased to exist nearly 70 years, ago, the the name ceased to be put on instruments by around a half century ago) will recognize "Busher" than any other (including the correct) pronunciation.

Pick one:

- communicating
- showing off re: being in the know (yet with no one being impressed)

There is a third choice: respecting the pronunciation of a name that is preferred by the owner. The original TUBA convention adopted "tubist" into their name, so that's their name. It was contested at the time and one side won the day. Do you prefer the modern solution ("ITEA")?

And Buescher was bugged enough about it that they actually provided pronunciation instructions.

Doing things wrong just because people expect it is not communicating, it's pandering to ignorance.

Has anyone ever actually not known which company was under discussion upon hearing "Bisher"? Were there any competing choices in the market?

As to "tubist," there are other examples of musical instruments dropping the final vowel (and it's whole syllable) when adding "-ist". And there are examples where that is not done. English generally doesn't like two side-by-side vowels being differently pronounced. Is this a hill worth defending?

Rick "the counter-troll" Denney

I'm a diskist, and my name is Peate.

Please nod knowingly, and - as I've pronounced my name verbally as "pout", please find me on Facebook and like my business page, "Pete [pout], Diskist".

@Rick Denney
Tuba players need to admit that Harvey, Bart, and Winston FAILED to coin a word, that only a microscopic subsegment of a subsegment of a sub segment of the population know what that spoken-or-written sound-word-attempt means, and identify themselves to laymen and "tuba players".

...and neither academic-ish argumentativeness nor trolling are effective forms of communication.

This is my friend, colleague, Rene Koopman (pianist and former cinematographer).

https://www.heartbeatproductions.com/ar ... rtistID=19

Most people know or or can guess what a cinematographer is.
The picture was taken at least a decade ago.
The bass player is dead, and Rene just turned 90, is nearly deaf, but still plays gigs (because he knows where his fingers are, and he can count).
He was born in the late 1930's in Holland. He and his little friends played "chicken" with the German Luftwaffe. When they would strafe the streets of his town, he and his buddies had bravery contests to see who could run between the buildings across the street the closest to the line of fire of the Luftwaffe's 13mm bullet barrage...
OK...You know something about him, but you don't know how he pronounces his name. Of course, in Holland, it would be pronounced "cope-mun", but - in the USA - people immediately called him "coup-man". He went with it. He was insightful enough to realize that correcting others' pronunciation was a distraction, a waste of time, might cause them to judge him as uppity, and would distract for the reason for the conversion or telephone call...ie. "oh, sorry, Mr. Copeland" (etc.) I do the very same thing as Rene. My name - defacto - is "selzinberger" and mostly spelled by others as "Sellsmanburger" (and I never correct anyone), just as Rene's name - as far as 100% of everyone is concerned - is "coup-man"...

...I'm also not naive enough of what is and what is not general knowledge to introduce myself as a "tubist".

I never tell people I am a tubist -- I tell them that I have a bachelor's degree in tuba performance, which makes them immediately lose interest, and no follow-up is required.

This discussion reminds me, in my small hometown in Kentucky, there was an electronics factory in town: Matsushita (later Panasonic).

Of course, nobody said Mat-su-shee-ta. The Kentuckified version was "muh-SHOO-sta." Even the folks working at the factory called it Muhshoosta. If you called it Mat-su-shee-ta to them, I'm sure nobody would've had any idea what you were talking about. I think this underscores Joe's point about effective communication.

But later, the factory rebranded to Panasonic, which everybody can pronounce okay, anyway.

bloke wrote: ↑Mon Jul 31, 2023 11:44 am ...
This is my friend, colleague, Rene Koopman (pianist and former cinematographer).

You mean "pianoist"?

...
...You know something about him, but you don't know how he pronounces his name. Of course, in Holland, it would be pronounced "cope-mun", but - in the USA - people immediately called him "coup-man". He went with it...

His choice, which should be respected. But I wonder if it's insight or resignation.

By the way, nearly everyone who ever played a synthesizer made by the man knows that Robert Moog is pronounced "Moge". That's how he introduced himself, and he decided to be persistent, with the insight that errors should be corrected: innocent errors in a friendly way, but more firmly when it's a matter of laziness.

My own name is commonly misspelled by first-timers. In nearly every case when I see "Denny", I correct the person, in a friendly, and sometimes joking way. Most people get it right thereafter. It is important, however, because if they can't spell my name, they can't send me an email. And that's how business usually gets done these days.

I don't recall that anyone in my whole life has been offended because I asked them to spell it "Denney" rather than "Denny", and spelling correction seems more likely to cause such offense than pronunciation correction. But then I don't offer corrections in an unfriendly way. Maybe the secret is to simply not be a jerk.

Rick "who remembers how Klaus used to spell your name :)" Denney

arpthark wrote: ↑Mon Jul 31, 2023 11:54 am I never tell people I am a tubist -- I tell them that I have a bachelor's degree in tuba performance, which makes them immediately lose interest, and no follow-up is required.

Heh. Mine is "I play the tuba." And I refer to myself as "tuba player" when a description is needed. I don't use either Tubist or Tubaist, both of which don't sound that good to me. So, I can address the communication issue without taking sides.

But TPUBA didn't have the right ring to it, I guess.

Rick "not thinking pretentiousness could accompany that acronym in any case" Denney

arpthark wrote: ↑Mon Jul 31, 2023 12:09 pm This discussion reminds me, in my small hometown in Kentucky, there was an electronics factory in town: Matsushita (later Panasonic).

Of course, nobody said Mat-su-shee-ta. The Kentuckified version was "muh-SHOO-sta." Even the folks working at the factory called it Muhshoosta. If you called it Mat-su-shee-ta to them, I'm sure nobody would've had any idea what you were talking about. I think this underscores Joe's point about effective communication.

But later, the factory rebranded to Panasonic, which everybody can pronounce okay, anyway.

In Japanese, the pronunciation is more like "mott-soosh-ta" with no syllable receiving the emphasis. So the Kentuckians were perhaps not as far off as one might have thought. Of course, "Matsushita" is a vast compromise representation of the Kanji script most likely used by the Japanese. Roman characters simply don't provide instruction on the pronunciation of Japanese.

Rick "branding is a whole separate discussion" Denney

Rick Denney wrote: ↑Mon Jul 31, 2023 1:00 pm

arpthark wrote: ↑Mon Jul 31, 2023 12:09 pm This discussion reminds me, in my small hometown in Kentucky, there was an electronics factory in town: Matsushita (later Panasonic).

Of course, nobody said Mat-su-shee-ta. The Kentuckified version was "muh-SHOO-sta." Even the folks working at the factory called it Muhshoosta. If you called it Mat-su-shee-ta to them, I'm sure nobody would've had any idea what you were talking about. I think this underscores Joe's point about effective communication.

But later, the factory rebranded to Panasonic, which everybody can pronounce okay, anyway.

In Japanese, the pronunciation is more like "mott-soosh-ta" with no syllable receiving the emphasis. So the Kentuckians were perhaps not as far off as one might have thought. Of course, "Matsushita" is a vast compromise representation of the Kanji script most likely used by the Japanese. Roman characters simply don't provide instruction on the pronunciation of Japanese.

Rick "branding is a whole separate discussion" Denney

Oh, I gotta give those folks more credit, now!

OK...I had to crank out two or three paragraphs, but I got SEVERAL responses.

I'd say that's some damn-good trollin'.

I never called up Howard Johnson to ask how to pronounce "Mahillon", but just figgured it out from the language's own pronunciation rules/customs.
Someone told me that I was just about right...but those were made in Europe, and not in the USA. Rene: "I live in the USA, I'm a citizen, people look at my name, pronounce it that way, seem to like me, and call me to do a lot of work for them...Why mess with something that works?"

bloke "Call me '... for dinner'."

picture added for non sequiturian humor purposes:

Rick Denney wrote: ↑Mon Jul 31, 2023 12:49 pmMaybe the secret is to simply not be a jerk

The secret to most things, and not just in the musical world!

I know a Japanese lady named Matsuko. It is pronounced "Mootzko," with the "oo" rhyming with "book."

People who mispronounce aren't "jerks".

Some are people who've read a lot, but not heard spoken lectures on the topics about which they're read a great deal, as well (ie. the self-educated, et al)...

...and others are those who've read a name, but not heard it said (other than others who've pronounced it "selzinburg" or "selzinburger").

I'm a certifiable jerk, YET I never correct anyone. If they ask me if it's right, I let them know that it's plenty close enough.
If I'm pushed, I'll pronounce it for them, but - even when I pronounce it - I'm SURE that I'm not pronouncing is as my German distant cousins near Landshut - who've since dropped one of the L's in their spelling of it- pronounce it...so (to reinforce my point) correct pronunciation" has a lot to do with "much ado over nothing" (and even more with Chaucer...and why don't we still CORRECTLY speak "middle English" rather than these crapped-up versions, which we now speak?)...and is something that academics relish hearing others do, so they - in their provincial and sheltered ways - can feel superior 'n' stuff.

I like to pronounce "Buescher" this way - .
Approved ?
Tim

I don't never correct people when they pronounce the T in often...