Posted by Robert Hill on September 09, 1998 at 17:52:20:
In Reply to: Re: Dorothea posted by Ian on September 09, 1998 at 14:12:51:
"Dorothea" undoubtedly rhymes with fear, rear, seer, etc.
(if we neglect the fact that in some dialects or
contexts the final R of these comparison words is audible).
This is confirmed by the section on names at the end of Chambers'
20th Century Dictionary, which also tells us that Dorothea and Dorothy
come from the Greek, meaning a gift of God (not, as I would have
naively guessed, an adorer or lover of God, like Theophilus or Amadeus).
Incidentally, if "Dorothea" had sounded exactly like "Dorothy",
a bit of dialogue between her and the doctor in tP&tM,
in which he misremembers her name as Dorothy and she corrects him,
would have been impossible.
The only real-life Dorothea that I could think of is Dorothea Brooking,
whose name I remember from the credits of BBC TV serials. She may have
been a producer or director but I think she adapted books for TV.
I think she often worked in the area of "classics" and children's
books but I have no knowledge of whether she was ever involved with
any Ransome adaptations.