Rhymes with What?
Sirs:
Reading through page 21 of TIME, Aug. 4, 1941, I came across the name of my ex-Premier--Phya Bahol--with your pronunciation as "Peeya B'hoo'" which is wrong.
The nearest pronunciation as I can think of should be "Pa-ya Pa-hol."
In case you may be interested to know, his full name is Major General Phya Baholpolapayuhasena--pronounced Pa-ya Pa-hol-pol-pa-yu-ha-se-na. . . .
SALA DASANANDA
Ithaca, N.Y.
Sirs:
I am a Thai student and consider myself privileged to be a confirmed, habitual and incorrigible reader of TIME. . . .
Being a foreigner and imbued, as I am, with an unsuspecting credulity, the farthest I would go with any other language is assiduously to pronounce it in the way it is spelt . . . . and thereby suffer a great many humiliations at the hand of the studied mispronunciation of the English language. . . .
In this particular case concerning the name of our former Premier mentioned in TIME, it happens that it is pronounced exactly as it is spelt, namely Phya Bahol. . . .
Yours--whatever you may pronounce it, S. PUNYAGUPTA Osterville, Mass.
>Here are two new pronunciations. The pronunciation TIME printed came from TIME'S correspondent in Bangkok and was rechecked before publication by the Thai Legation in Washington. TIME'S readers are advised to swallow their tongues slightly when speaking of the ex-Premier.--ED.
Rotarians and Nazis
Sirs:
Nazi activities in South America are many, and you have pointed out some of them. Still you do not mention the Rotary International, whose business offices are in your own country. Silly Rotary Clubs in South America are known as gathering places for pro-Axis members, and many of them appear also on the black lists. I think the matter deserves more than a commentary.
E. GARCIA CARRILLO, M.D. San Jose, Costa Rica
>Rotary Clubs exist in 8 Latin American republics, but in most of them, with the possible exception of Chile and Colombia, Rotarians with Nazi sympathies are few. One good reason: Rotary International's bitter relations with Nazis in Europe, where Rotary Clubs have been generally suppressed. Suspect are some Rotary Clubs in Mexico, but Rotary harbors no Nazi hotspots in Cuba, Peru, Brazil. In Buenos Aires all but one pro-Nazi member resigned, on German Embassy orders after Douglas Fairbanks Jr.'s famed democracy speech.
Rotary International's ex-president (1938-39) George Caldwell Hager, who in the last nine months visited 50 Latin American Rotary Clubs, declares: "In the whole of Central and South America you will not find over 100 members of Rotary with Nazi leanings." He adds that no Rotary members are on the black list.--ED.
In Six Lines
Sirs:
A comment.
DICTATOR
He said:
I shall be ruthless.
When the time for cruelty is past I will be merciful once more.
But the wind blew And he froze that way.
RICHARD MAIBAUM
Beverly Hills, Calif.
Jews Included
Sirs:
You have asserted without basis in your Aug. 4 issue that the Archbishop of Dubuque is an anti-Semite. . . .
The fact that I frequently addressed our Catholic and Christian citizens in my broadcast of July 27 was due not to any desire on my part to exclude the Jewish people from my remarks; it was the threatened division of the Catholics and Christians on this vital national issue of war or peace which I was striving to forestall.
Let it be known now that I am not and never have been an anti-Semite; and that Christ's words: "Love thy neighbor as thyself" have a thoroughly cosmopolitan meaning for me. Catholic, Christian, and Jew can and ought to cooperate in preserving this nation at peace. It is regrettable that thus far such cooperation has not been achieved by those of us who are striving mightily for it. Certainly, in injecting this anti-Semitic note TIME magazine has contributed nothing to our efforts. . . .
FRANCIS J. L. BECKMAN
Archbishop of Dubuque
Dubuque, Iowa
>TIME is glad to know that Archbishop Beckman is no anti-Semite. TIME'S misapprehension (like that of many a Roman Catholic) arose from: 1) Archbishop Beckman's close association with his longtime good friend, Father Coughlin; 2) his use of the term "Christian-Americans," an anti-Semite favorite; 3) omission of Jews in his plea "to unite in the common cause of Americanism.--ED .
Legend Modified
Sirs:
The Professor Kittredge legends recounted in your Aug. 4 issue are orthodox and generally credited. But I am sure that the great teacher would resent having some of them stand without modification in your widely read columns. ... I once heard him deny publicly at Dartmouth the retort, "Who would examine me?" when asked why he had not taken the Ph.D. degree. "That would have been nonsense!" he exclaimed, and added humorously, "I don't think I could have passed an examination for that degree." About the Oxfordian who told him that the only man who could answer an obscure question about Shakespeare was the American scholar Kittredge, he was still more emphatic. "That story," he said, "had no connection with me whatever. Something like it was true of my teacher, Professor Child, who was solemnly referred to one of his own works by a foreign scholar. How the story was exaggerated and transferred to me, I do not know." . . . What you say of his class behavior is wholly true. He once remarked: "The teacher's profession is like the actor's, but without the usual perils."
E. BRADLEE WATSON Department of English Dartmouth College Hanover, N.H.
Sirs:
Several times in reference to the V-Campaign TIME has asserted, or implied, that the word "victory" or "viktoria" is unfamiliar to Germans.
Truth is that every little school boy in Germany knows by heart at least one poem which either begins or ends with "Viktoria!" or which employs the word in conjunction with similar exultations like "hurra" and "gloria."
Best example, perhaps, is Julius Mosen's poem of The Trumpeter of the Katzbach, from which I quote these lines:
"Viktoria"--so klang es
"Viktoria"--ueberall
"Viktoria"--so drang es Hervor mit Dormerschall!
Three viktorias in as many lines--and I could quote you half a dozen poems more. If I had a dollar for every German girl whose name is Viktoria, or every German boy whose name is Viktor, I should comfortably afford to subscribe for FORTUNE. Ask Vicki Baum some time, if you don't believe me. . . .
KARL SCHAUERMANN Milwaukee, Wis.
Ageless Controversy
Sirs:
It is not the truth, as TIME states [July 14], that "Lee . . . expected Longstreet to advance at dawn" on July 2 at Gettysburg. . . .
All the criticism of General Longstreet's operations at Gettysburg has been based on the malicious charge by General Pendleton, after the death of Lee, that Longstreet was ordered to make an early or sunrise attack at Gettysburg [that day]. But Pendleton's own report, written about 60 days after the battle . . . states that Lee, Longstreet, himself and other officers were riding over the battlefront on the morning of July 2, "soon after sunrise," until "about midday . . . surveying the enemy's position . . . and the best mode of attack." . .
HELEN DORTCH LONGSTREET Gettysburg, Pa.
-- In recalling one of the most controversial episodes in one of the world's most controversial battles, TIME meant no smirch. Authorities who supported TIME'S position include Longstreet's own biographers, Eckenrode & Conrad, Lee's biographer, Douglas Southall Freeman, the Dictionary of American Biography. Whether the criticism of Longstreet is just or not, Longstreet at Gettysburg has been for years a classic U.S. symbol of the costliness of delay.--ED.
Pitcher, Size Unknown
Sirs:
Your reply to Mr. Howard J. Archibald's letter in TIME, Aug. 4, explains curtly, clearly and completely how your Moscow correspondent deduced that Stalin had a pitcher of tea before him when he spoke over the microphone, by hearing over the loudspeaker in Red Square the sound of a liquid being poured into a glass during a dramatic pause, but how did he know it was a "big" pitcher of tea ?
B. P. SCHULBERG Columbia Pictures Corp.
Hollywood, Calif.
>A palpable hit.--ED.
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