Kiwis have a head start here, for everyone knows how to say Otago, the name of a sizeable slab of the South Island. Oh-tar-go. I believe it is an Anglicization of the Maori word "Otakou," the original meaning of which might possibly have been "red earth."
I know what you're thinking; how meaningful, what huge theological potential! Red earth - Adam, gosh - euphemism for deity... sadly, no such profundity was intended; when I began this blog I was starting out in theological studies through the University of Otago. A colleague commented 'oh gosh!' (doubtless wondering at my slender link to sanity in studying a subject of no practical use.) Sooo... I bunged the two words together: Otago and gosh. Hence Otagosh (Oh-ta-gosh.)
In that it's an invented word however, it does help out directing folk to exactly the right place when they google it, regardless of pronunciation!
On a tangent, three Otagosh posts made the latest [ad hoc] Christianity podcast list, one of which got a passing mention on the audio ("typical Otagosh"? Obviously I'm getting far too predictable.) The podcast itself is a long one, chewing up the best part of an hour with good-natured banter, but if you're a biblioblog junkie, well hey, so what?
Well, it tormented me! Every time I even thought about the blog I'd wonder how to pronounce it. If I'd just considered that it was based on a Maori word...oh well.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the plug!
I admire your creativity.
ReplyDeleteI myself fabricate new words to advance our language to become ever more colorful -- not that it isn't excessively so now.
My latest (though unnoticed) entry is asnide -- an infusion of making a snide remark as an aside.
We'll be watching for your future contributions to make our language ever more colorful.
Gosh, it will be fun, in spite of the euphemisms ["Lord, help us stamp out all those darned euphemisms!"].
Douglas, that's why I've been careful not to pronounce this name in public.
ReplyDeleteThose big bad euphemisms.... although to be honest, I hear people around me in UCG using them more and more during fellowship times.
Well now I know. I have been using a short vowel 'O' instead of the long vowel.
ReplyDeleteIt won't happen again. Thanks for the enlightenment.
"Those big bad euphemisms.... although to be honest, I hear people around me in UCG using them more and more during fellowship times."
ReplyDeleteThat's unfortunate. I remember being shocked by the American YOU kids, who often found/fabricated creative "euphemisms" themselves. I remember thinking it was as if they had traded one "worldly" crutch for another. This would have been the mid- to late 1980s, in WCG.