Friday, February 7, 2014

It's Not Always Spelled the Way It Sounds

There is an outspoken advocate for South Bay who insists that the name of the Swiss cement company that causes Hudson so much aggravation should be pronounced Hōl kim, while the rest of us persist in pronouncing it Hōl sum. There's both irony and danger in the latter pronunciation, as evidenced by this sentence from Arthur Cusano's report about the new owners of Local Ocean in today's Register-Star: "He said the town will extend the sewer district to include the property, which also includes Wholesome Cement, formerly known as St. Lawrence Cement." 

 (Note: Since Gossips spotted this, the misspelling has been corrected, but before that happened, a reader made this screen capture.)

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4 comments:

  1. unheimlichFebruary 7, 2014 at 8:05 AM

    I never thought I'd see it in print!

    Yes, the SLC public relations team has achieved its ultimate goal, and the homonym is no longer merely subliminal.

    Saul Alinsky was right: “He who controls the language controls the masses”

    For now on I'm also spelling "Holkim" with a "K."

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  2. unheimlichFebruary 7, 2014 at 9:46 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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  3. unheimlichFebruary 7, 2014 at 9:57 AM

    Unfortunately for those who are understandably confused by Hudson's recent history, the overlooked remainder of Mr. Cusano's sentence is perfectly accurate: "formerly known as St. Lawrence Cement."

    It's not readily apparent, and not stated often enough, that today's owner of the South Bay is the same company as its predecessor, whose plans to build a giant cement plant in Greenport were defeated in 2004.

    Changing the name effected a double coup. Not only was the name of St. Lawrence replaced, along with all of its bad associations, but under supposedly new ownership it became wholesome too.

    "He who controls the language ..."

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  4. unheimlichFebruary 7, 2014 at 10:26 AM

    [Oops, it was April 19, 2005.]

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