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Pure pronunciation power!

Nancy sent me a resource that will make your life a whole lot easier and contains precisely 9,032 entries of sheer phonetic goodness hosted on the Library of Congress website, compiled by Ray Hagen.

Ray Hagen is a voice actor who started collecting the proper pronunciations of names in the 1970s written on index cards he kept in a shoe box. No doubt these pronunciations came in handy when recording over 400 audio books!

I was very impressed with this resource and decided to contact Ray personally, and upon doing so, was delighted to learn that there is a companion guide called The ABC Book, A Pronunciation Guide that features acronyms, brand names, corporations and obscure words, a resource which is hosted online as well.

What inspired "Say How? A Pronunciation Guide to Names of Public Figures"?

Say How? was born at the Library of Congress Talking Books for the Blind Recording Studio, where pronunciation of words and names borders on obsession. We found that one area was conspicuously missing from all of our many dictionaries and pronunciation guides: names of lesser known and contemporary public figures. Reference works tend to favor the famous and the dead. So at our Studio we began compiling a file of 3 x 5 cards with names of people prominent and obscure, past and present, in the fields of entertainment, politics, sports, literature, science, crime, fashion, medicine, law - anyone, in short, who's name could possibly turn up in a book. (Even relatives got included - David Niven's wife, Beverly Sills's husband, Fred Astaire's daughter, etc. - because they get written about, too.) After filling up five shoeboxes with index cards, we were finally able to computerize the list and distribute it in print form to other Library of Congress Talking Book Studios throughout the country, updating it every six months with additions and corrections.

As briefly outlined above, here is the background for this guide and how to use it.

Say How? is meant to be an ongoing project, with errors corrected and new names added regularly. In fact, Ray eagerly solicits any and all contributions and corrections. Ray encourages you to send all such information to: hagenray (at) earthlink.net.

You can view the online version of "Say How?" here.

This version at the Library of Congress was last updated in May of 2006, however, Ray has been updating the guides on his own.

We are working with Ray to acquire the newest versions for you at present.

Best,

Stephanie

P.S. After you've reviewed the list, come back to VOX Daily and leave a comment with your fave names to pronounce!

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