Passover pet peeve

[dr_whom]

The spelling "matzo".

Seriously. Why does anyone spell matzah as "matzo"? It doesn't represent the pronunciation of the word in English, which is /ˈmatsə/. It doesn't represent modern standard Hebrew pronunciation, which is /maˈtsa/. It doesn't reflect the typical pre-contemporary way of Anglicizing the spelling of Hebrew words, as is found in e.g. English Bible translations for Christian audiences, which would render it as "mazzah". And it doesn't even represent the Ashkenazic and/or Yiddish pronunciation on which the spelling presumably based, which is also /ˈmatsə/. In stylistically restricted circumstances like reading the Torah you might get /maˈtsɔ/ in Ashkenazic Hebrew, since Torah trop explicitly stipulates which syllable of each word is stressed, but that's not the way anyone would pronounce the word in daily life and it's clearly not the pronunciation which is used English; of all the possible ways of rendering the word in English, it seems obviously the least useful.

Comments

[q10.livejournal.com]

any theories on how it got that way? could it be some kind of analogy back-formation thing from ‘matzot’?

[dr_whom]

Back-formation from "matzot" and, as ophblekuwufu suggests, hypercorrect use of the Ashkenazic final-stress pronunciation used for Torah reading both seem plausible to me. It's not much of an excuse, though, if you ask me.

[q10.livejournal.com]

on the ‘matzot’ thing - could this be related to the way that it's a count noun in the original, but (outside of Haggadah translations) is mostly used as a mass noun in English?

[dr_whom]

I don't know, but I can't think of any obvious reason it would be.

[ophblekuwufu.livejournal.com]

Can anyone think of other examples of plural feminine words in Hebrew being given singular endings of "O"? This seems like a surprising thing for someone to do, since it requires understanding precisely half of a pretty simple grammatical rule. But if it were done, mightn't we also be able to look for it in other cases?

[occultatio.livejournal.com]

I've probably told you this story, but my family's hagaddah's spell it "mazzah." However, the first time this appears, the word is footnoted. The note: "pronounced 'matzah.'"

We have no idea.

[ophblekuwufu.livejournal.com]

To my ear it sounds like a hypercorrection to Yiddish ('kometz aleph O', right?).

[dr_whom]

Yeah, and as noted that is the pronunciation used for Ashkenazic Torah reading... but it's just not how anyone would pronounce it in real life.

[silkspinner.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, "matzo" completely reflects the (Midwestern, mangled) pronunciation I was taught as a child.

This may have been a back formation from the spelling.

[tiamat360.livejournal.com]

In defense of the Midwest: I was taught "matzah" for pronunciation, and typically saw it spelled that way as well.

[silkspinner.livejournal.com]

Hee hee, I didn't mean to claim that the entire region was in the habit of so doing.

[miraclaire.livejournal.com]

I'm just really glad I'm not the only person bothered by this!