Miscellaneous Musing #89

The only sounding of "Israel" that makes any sense in English is IZ-ray-el.  Unhappily, the name has long been sung as IZ-rye-el, and this cause of vexation seems to be gaining currency in speech as well.  (This mispronunciation presumably is the result of the fact that "Israel" has been transmitted to us through the classical tongues Greek and Latin, in the latter of which "a" and "e" together represented the sound that we use for the pronoun "I".)  I suggest that you start practicing the proper pronunciation now, because one thing that you don't want to do is rile me!