Saturday, 2 April 2011

Slander!

I hardly ever google myself (it makes you go blind) but did last night and found some of the most splendid abuse - a bloke called Bill Klapp calling me an 'effete douche bag' for, of all things, my pronunciation of Piedmont, which he says should be pronounced Piemonte, a la Italian. His boeuf seems to be it's British arrogance to anglicise foreign place names, so he makes a point of saying 'Venezia' instead of Venice:

'Since I spend half of my time in Italy, speaking primarily to Italian friends in Italian, it is no surprise that I would use Italian words. However, with Americans who clearly would not know what "Venezia" is, I try to educate them by saying "Venezia, you know, Venice" or words to that effect.'

Presumably he castigates his Italian friends for saying Inghilterra instead of 'England'? How I would love to be at one of his soirees.

But a question for you, 'Bill'. How do you pronounce niche? Aha! I thought so! it's a French word, my friend, so less of that post-colonial 'nitch' nonsense.

Honestly. It's poor sport really. Like shooting fish in a barrel.

Anyway - here it is - I'm only doing it so I get a link back, you understand.
http://winetalk.com/forum/showthread.php?9722-I-Am-Sorry-but-Adam-Lechmere-Editor-of-Decanter-is...&p=81234

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