Passover pet peeve
Apr. 13th, 2012 11:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dr_whomThe 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.
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.
