Posted by Ed Kiser on July 18, 2001 at 06:27:08 from 64.111.167.233:
In Reply to: books for my grandson posted by f.a.read-powell on July 17, 2001 at 23:10:40:
A very early girlfriend in my life was named Latitia - pronounced
LA TISH YA. I and her other friends called her TEETEE, which is
a slight variation of the pronunciation of Titty. When reading
SA out loud, it was quite a natural thing for me to pronounce
the name as TEETEE. No questions, no concerns, no snickering -
that's just her name, accepted as such.
If reading the name as "Titty", be careful to give it the proper
British pronunciation, where the second sylable starts with a "T".
The American pronunciation would have that second sylable start with
a "D", and that mispronunciation suggests other definitions, with
the resulting snickering and misunderstandings.
I prefer Titty to Mavis - as that second name was the Alied nickname
for a type of military aircraft used by the Japanese in WWII, and thus
has quite a different suggestive nature to me. Those of you younger
than I am probably are totally unaware of this usage of MAVIS.
History has its way of coming back on us...
Ed Kiser