A Pronunciamento

     “To the Editor of The Landmark.
Sir:—A few days ago you gave four or five ways for pronouncing Czolgosz, culled from as many papers. Now, there cannot be a half dozen proper ways to pronounce one name; and, as all the papers quoted gave a different way, it is barely possible that all were wrong, and I believe that they were all wrong.
     “Now, Mr. Editor, if you know how to pronounce this jawbone-breaker, please tell us at once, or something serious will surely happen; for it is painful to see the people going about with one side of the face screwed up trying to get the name right. It really seems as if you could pronounce it better if you were standing on your head, but that is manifestly inconvenient. So, do come to our rescue before we lose our mental equilibrium. Be sure you get it right, or our condition will be worse when, after learning another way to pronounce it, we should find it to be wrong. A relapse in such a case as this must certainly terminate fatally.
     “Yours in deep distress,

“Populi.”     

     There are some subjects an editor hesitates to approach. This is one of them. The Landmark does not pretend to be an authority on Polish—when the word is spelled with a capital “p” and the “o” is pronounced as in “Rome.” Under other conditions, it might have something decisive to say. But if we knew how to pronounce Czolgosz, we are sure our correspondent would not be able to repeat it after us. We have it on good authority that this same “Populi” went to a certain foreigner in our city and got that gentleman to pronounce the name of the assassin as it would be pronounced in Poland. The foreign gentleman did this as often as was required, but “Populi” was found wanting. His tongue clave to the roof of his mouth; his ordinarily active jawbone refused to work; his imitative powers were paralyzed. If we were disposed to tackle this problem, we might advance the claims of “Chullgoash;” but our disposition, our instinct, is to flee. Give us something easy, like “Roosevelt,” whose name is pronounced by most of the authorities differently from his own pronunciation of it, poor fellow!