Wolfe's brilliance or my denseness?

Lee Berman · 24 May 2011, 12:48 · from 2011-May.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Tue, 24 May 2011 08:48:46 -0400
Subject: (urth) Wolfe's brilliance or my denseness?
Message-ID: <SNT123-W4871C49B2665DA1E0AB76FCF750 at phx.gbl>

Antonio Pedro Marques: my instictive reading of Dorcas was
> DAWRK-us (gave up on IPA), possibly not that far from the
> AmE pronunciation,but not being acquainted with the name I
> switfly considered door-KAZZ, seeing as there was a guy
> nearby looking for a KAZZ.

Yes, that is to my point. An AmE speaker seeing the name "Cas" even if he/she 
knows it to be a nickname, will not be sure whether to pronounce it "cass" as
in "Cassandra" or "Kazz" as in "Casdoe".

But seeing the name Dorcas, we do not think of "cass" or "kazz" as
the pronunuciation of the second syllable. For us it is "kis" or "kus". Antonio, 
I am thinking in your language the name Tomas' is pronounced in a way in which
"Mas" could be an extractible nickname. Not so for the English Thomas.

>Marc Aramini- but one more thing: any bible thumping type would immediately associate 
>Dorcas with resurrection as soon as they heard the name.

Wolfe may have aimed that name at Biblical scholars. I know I hadn't heard of the 
resurrected Dorcas until after reading BotNS and doing some research. I have the 
feeling the "gazelle" reference in her name is also important.

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