[net.music] Mozart KV

Ridgway@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA (02/22/85)

The K does stand for KOECHEL (umlaut o), and does not, I repeat, does
not, contain the letter R, although too many people who should know
better have pronounced it "koerchel" for God knows how long.  It is also
not pronounced "kershel", which is the other most common mistake.

ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis) (02/26/85)

>The K does stand for KOECHEL (umlaut o), and does not, I repeat, does
>not, contain the letter R, although too many people who should know
>better have pronounced it "koerchel" for God knows how long.  It is also
>not pronounced "kershel", which is the other most common mistake.

    English does not contain the phoneme written in German umlaut-o,
    sometimes respelt `oe'. In case the author of the above remark is 
    unaware:

	1) Not every English speaker can accurately reproduce the
	   sounds of German.
	2) The English pronunciation of `ur' in `fur' is the closest
	   our language has to this German sound.
        3) Speakers of languages containing the umlaut-o sound
	   frequently use that sound to reproduce English's `ur'
	   in `fur'.

    If the author of the KOECHEL flame had wished to be constructive,
    s/he might have pointed out that the `ch' resembles the sound
    of `h' in `huge' more than it does `sh'...

-michael