[Minor spoiler] Why Włocławek is a bad name for a planet

Louis R wrote:I'm confident that we all understand what you're saying. This is indeed a place where a little tiny infodump might be useful, although I must say that any place where Copernicus attended school isn't precisely insignificant.

piotrus wrote:Ha, thanks for showing me I didn't google enough (re: Smoking Frog). Cool. Frankly, before I did some research for this, I never thought much about planet names here, and I hope this thread shows some of us yet another cool aspect of Honorverse

And yes, I already acknowledged there are many possible if unlikely in-game explanation for a planet's name. No name is, frankly, impossible.

That's why I pointed to the list of existing names and noted that compared to most other nations (Americans, French, German, Czech, Hungarian, Japanese, and a dozen others I could identify) the first Polish name is Honorverse is, IMHO, uninspiring (pronunciation aside, but even here there are places like Szczebrzeszyn...). Again, comparatively. Am I happy Poles finally got their name? Sure I am. I am just saying that when other Polish fans of the series make the logical comparison - Czechs gets Prague, Brits get Glasgow, French Dijin, German Postdam, Japanese Nagasaki, etc. all of which are major towns, some may be a bit disappointed. Those other names give one an immediate association with another country. Wloclawek, let's face it - no non-Pole will get it without googling. To what degree MWW cares about disappointing or appeasing any Polish audience, I am not sure - I am just trying to say that IMHO (and in that of the other Polish poster I cited) the name is, well, the original poster called it hilarious, and maybe that is what was intended. But again, for some who compare it to others, it may be a tad disappointing. Hopefully most Polish readers will just be happy with the first Polish name in Honorverse, but why not make them more safely happy with a cooler*, more recognizable name?

*cooler for anyone who is not from Wloclawek, of course

Annachie wrote:Aye, at least with the romance languages, us English only speakers, and ESL's for that matter, have a decent chance to work out the pronounciation.

Bring on the audio book.


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Louis R wrote:Ha! Don't kid yourself! Rather the opposite - locals hear me speaking their language with a local accent and assume that I know more of the vocabulary and grammar than I do. Which can have embarrassing consequences.

Cheers,John

The facility with which Anglophones mangle languages is equaled only by their lack of facility in learning them. At best the results come out sounding like an obscure regional dialect - generally one with only 13 native speakers left, none living in the home country.

Mind you, that particular shoe fits rather well on the other foot. I recall one French chap who went on and on about 'la didi'. Took me a good 10 minutes to decipher "Lady Di"

Annachie wrote:Aye, at least with the romance languages, us English only speakers, and ESL's for that matter, have a decent chance to work out the pronounciation.

Bring on the audio book.


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John Prigent wrote:Speak for yourself, but not for me. I have no problem in pronouncing non-English languages (apart from remembering which of 'ie' and 'ei' is pronounced as 'ee' in German.)

Louis R wrote:Ha! Don't kid yourself! Rather the opposite - locals hear me speaking their language with a local accent and assume that I know more of the vocabulary and grammar than I do. Which can have embarrassing consequences.

Cheers,John

The facility with which Anglophones mangle languages is equaled only by their lack of facility in learning them. At best the results come out sounding like an obscure regional dialect - generally one with only 13 native speakers left, none living in the home country.

Mind you, that particular shoe fits rather well on the other foot. I recall one French chap who went on and on about 'la didi'. Took me a good 10 minutes to decipher "Lady Di"