What is the "correct" pronunciation of Robin Hartshorne's last name? Mostly I hear it pronounced "Har-shorn" although I've also heard "Harts-orn" and maybe a few other variations.
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2Sorry, I think this is off-topic, so I'm voting to close (but I basically agree with Will's answer). – S. Carnahan Apr 04 '10 at 05:14
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5Here are two similar questions, to which we might want to apply the same standards: http://mathoverflow.net/questions/4381/pronunciation-dijkstra, http://mathoverflow.net/questions/4394/pronunciation-crapo – Jonas Meyer Apr 04 '10 at 05:24
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2Fair enough. I guess we have a "names" tag for a reason. – S. Carnahan Apr 04 '10 at 08:03
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47I pity the poor devils with unpronounceable names... – Georges Elencwajg Apr 04 '10 at 09:10
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7I'm with Georges on this. – Mikael Vejdemo-Johansson Apr 04 '10 at 17:56
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14I was once told, "'Hart-shorn' is the book, 'Harts-horn' is the person." – Jonathan Wise Apr 04 '10 at 21:17
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3The poor devils could follow Kiran Kedlaya's example: http://www.mit.edu/~kedlaya/about-my-name.html – Greg Marks Jul 30 '11 at 21:09
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He prefers it be pronounced as in Hart's Horn. I asked him a few years ago, our brief common ground being assisting Marvin Jay Greenberg with revisions for the fourth edition of his book on Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry. That is not to say that I have ever heard anyone else say it that way. But then few people get my name right.
Will Jagy
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1Thank you, kind sir. It is J as in judge, long a, hard g as in gorilla, y to rhyme with e, all as common in American English. That being said, the name is most likely from Switzerland or Alsace-Lorraine by way of Ellis Island, no reliable way of knowing – Will Jagy Apr 04 '10 at 05:14
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Wow, I assumed your name was Hungarian (like Nagy), which would give a completely different pronunciation. – Douglas Zare Apr 04 '10 at 10:11
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5As it happens, I asked Robin the same qustion a few weeks ago and he replied: "think of hart's horn (it means the horn of a deer)" – Dror Speiser Apr 04 '10 at 10:57
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1I had also assumed "Jagy" was Hungarian. (For the record, "Lugo" is Spanish, and pronounced as such.) – Michael Lugo Apr 04 '10 at 13:05
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In Europe most of the people do pronounce harts-horn. I was using this in US as well and spoiled it a bit more recently after being contaminated by the prononciation of some colleagues. So more recently I said it few times Harts-shorn what is likely wrong. In any case I am surprise that you say that you hear nobody around Berkeley saying it harts-horn. – Zoran Skoda Apr 04 '10 at 20:29
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I'm sure people who have regular contact with him have figured it out. – Will Jagy Apr 05 '10 at 00:25
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5BTW, my given name is Robert Lewis; people call me Bob Lewis. That's "B" as in Banach, "o" as in "operator", "L" as in "Labochevsky", an "ew" diphthong pronounced generally as the "u" in "grand U-nified theory, "i" as in "integral" and "s" as in "simplex". Any questions? – drbobmeister Jan 10 '11 at 17:18
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1To reaffirm what Zoran said, I have never heard somebody in Poland or Germany pronouncing it Hart-shorn. – Łukasz Grabowski Jan 16 '11 at 00:47
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2I am German and I have the impression that people in Germany usually pronounce it Hart-shorn. – Lennart Meier Sep 09 '11 at 10:04
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11I once heard somebody quip that the man's name is pronounced "Hart's Horn" but the book is pronounced "Hart Shorn." – Ramsey Feb 08 '13 at 20:37