How do you pronounce “Cuchulain”?

When I took my mythology course as an undergraduate, I think the professor pronounced the “ch” as in “choo choo.”  I’m pretty sure (in retrospect) that this was incorrect, but I could be mistaken about him having done it that way.  He was an extraordinarily competent person and I would hate to libel him as a mispronouncer of great names in Irish mythology based on nothing but my (often) faulty memory.  Not that you should hold it against him anyway, because one can only be an expert on so many things, and there doesn’t appear to be any clear consensus on how to pronounce “Cuchulain” anyway, so why not pronounce the “ch” like “choo choo,” if that’s how you feel like doing it?  What are the Irish going to do about it?  Huh?

The professor who taught the Yeats seminar at my (first) graduate school pronounced it “koo-HOO-lin,” which there seems to be a lot more support for on the internet.  However, I recently heard someone of Irish descent–who furthermore obviously had some knowledge about his ancestors’ mythological heroes–pronounce it “koo-KULL-lin.”  And “koo-KULL-lin” is how they say it in Suidakra’s “Feats of War.”  Listen:

Who are you going to believe?

This year Elvis is attending the same school that Princess Zurg attended before she got sent to the School for Incorrigible Girls.  I am noticing the same pattern of behavior among people who learn that one of my children is attending this school.  It goes like this:

Person:  So where is Elvis [or PZ, as the case used to be] going to school?

Me:  Super-Awesome Elementary.  [Not the the school's real name but suitable enough for the purposes of this story]

Person:  I’ve never heard of that.  Where is it?

Me:  It’s over by Hospital X.  [Not the hospital's real name but again, suitable enough etc.]

Person:  [confused expression, seeming to indicate that more specific information is necessary...waiting...waiting...waiting for me to say something else to support my assertion that the school does exist]

Why on earth would people do this?  I tell you my kid goes to Super-Awesome Elementary; that really ought to be enough for you, I think.  I understand being curious about where it is, but when I say it’s by Hospital X, how is that not enough for you?  I know you know where Hospital X is.  It’s impossible to live on this side of the city and not know where Hospital X is.  Your last child was probably born there.  It is a major landmark.  It’s where they wanted to build the Wal-Mart.  They provide medical care to the sick and injured.  Any of this ringing a bell?

If you’re wondering how you could have driven past Hospital X for so many years and never noticed an elementary school, it’s because it’s not exactly right next door to the hospital.  It is a few blocks up and off of the major thoroughfare that the hospital is on.  But I’m not going to tell you that the school is not actually next door to the hospital but actually next door to the Smith family who live on Random Street-name Lane because I think the likelihood of you knowing where the Smiths live is much smaller than the likelihood of you understanding the GENERAL LOCATION of Hospital X, the only MAJOR LANDMARK by this school that I promise you does exist even though you’ve never seen it.  You don’t really need latitude and longitude, do you?  Why don’t you just Google it?  Why are you hassling me?

I couldn’t tell you why this frustrates me so much, but it’s just been bugging me lately.

I took four years of German in high school.  Don’t ask why, I just did.  My college didn’t offer German, so I took two years of Spanish.  I have mostly forgotten whatever I knew about either language.

My husband also took German in high school.  In college he took Latin.  On his mission he learned to ask three questions in Spanish.  They were the questions you had to ask converts before they could get baptized.  I think one of them was “Have you ever killed anyone?”  Maybe not, but regardless of that, none was the sort of question that would be useful in casual conversation.  Through various foreign-born acquaintances he has learned to say “you smell like a monkey” in, like, eight or sixteen different languages.  When he was teaching SAT prep classes in California, his students taught him to say various rude things in Chinese, such as “Your math is terrible!” and “Your mother has AIDS!”  (Note:  the latter was unsolicited information, and fortunately he has never had to use it.  …  I should probably mention that he has never used it gratuitously, either.)

Princess Zurg is taking a foreign language in middle school, but it’s not German or Spanish or Latin or Chinese.  It’s French.  Ooh la la!  It just occurred to me that I don’t know if my husband knows how to say “you smell like a monkey” in French, even though his brother served a mission in France and was reasonably fluent in it at one time even if he hasn’t kept it up much since.  I’m having a hard time imagining that he never asked my brother-in-law to teach him that phrase; on the other hand, I have never heard him use it specifically.  I have a feeling, though, that that little tidbit will come out eventually–probably at a parent-teacher conference.  Time will tell.

I want to thank everyone for the Minis of encouragement and the like.  I am much less sanity-challenged today than I was yesterday.  I’ve been off my Effexor for almost a week, and I’m pre-menstrual, which isn’t helpful.  This situation is too complicated to explain, but I can tell you that I am reading this book, It’s My Ovaries, Stupid! to try to figure out if it really is my ovaries (…stupid).  And if it is my ovaries (stupid), I don’t rightly know what I’ll do about it, but I can’t imagine I’ll like any of the options.  You know what kind of options I like?  Easy ones.  Ovaries are apparently not for the stupid to figure out.  That doesn’t bode well for me.  But I digress.

I was going to say that I am trying to manage my life better by making these short to-do lists.  (Today’s list:  Shower.  Check.  I feel better already.)  It is harder than it sounds.  I have never been good at short to-do lists.  I’m better at making long to-do lists, failing to do most of what’s on them and consequently hating myself for my failures.  That’s really where my strengths lie.  However, I am willing–for the sake of science, if nothing else–to give these short to-do lists a go.  Today I put seven things on my to-do list.  (Two of them were “Change the baby’s diaper” and “Feed the baby breakfast.”  Check and check!  I’m like Superwoman today, kids.)

I took my compulsion to craft long to-do lists and channeled it into a “Things I Can Do Today If I Really Want To But Only If I Really Want To” list.  It’s twice as long and far more challenging, and I haven’t done any of it so far.  But then again, I haven’t wanted to.  Which means that I have been very successful in compartmentalizing my lists.  If that were on one of my lists, I could check it off.  Theoretically.  But I’m also working on not making such long lists, so I left it off.

I’m to be congratulated.

Well, I’m off to take my thyroid supplement (also on the list–I’ll let you guess which one).  I hope you all have a lovely weekend.  A collective lovely weekend.  Or separate lovely weekends.  Whichever.  (Clear and accurate writing isn’t on my to-do list either.  I figure if it’s meant to happen, it’ll happen.)