But at least it starts off sounding like a holiday tale.

:D

I've completed the book and am looking forward to the discussion.

Me, too!

Not yet. Got started in the eBook, but decided I'd prefer to listen to it. And I'm still slogging my way through Weber's At the Sign of Triumph. But I hope to get some concentrated listening time with a couple of trips next week.

I've got the audiobook cued up next, after I finish Wodehouse's Piccadilly Jim (which is delightful).

Well, of course it is. It's Wodehouse! (Who's the reader?)

My favorite Wodehouse reader of them all, Frederick Davidson.* :D But even the gods stumble occasionally; the New York restaurant is Del-MON-ico's, not Delmon-EE-co's. :wince: Still, his lifetime mispronunciation index is minuscule, mandatory for godly status.

*He's always Frederick Davidson to me, just as Wanda McCaddon is always Nadia May, real names be danged.

Agree completely about "real names" here. Though for me, Ms. McCaddon is and always will be Donada Peters. ;) And David Case is actually David Case, since that's what I first heard him as.

As for Delmonico's -- the only way I ever heard it in NYC was Del-MON-ico's. Not to say that's correct, but that's what New Yorkers appear to use. (Note: New Yorkers are no better at pronouncing names than any other jurisdiction. You should hear some of the things San Francisco natives do to proper place names. And I grew up in a town where there was a "GO-thee" street!)

The "when in Rome" rule always applies. You've got to say names the way the locals do. So New Yorkers are absolutely the authority when it comes to pronouncing local institutions, such as House-ton St. And ditto for San Franciscans. (I'm a native New Yorker who lived for several years in the Bay Area.)

OK, Go-thee makes me titter. In turn, I'll offer up one from the nearby State of Maine. Calais. You think you know how to say it?

You should see what they did to Cadieux street. ;)

Listening to Prunella Scales reading Cranford I was jarred out of the story when she pronounced "Don Quixote" as "Don Quicks-oat" until I realized that it was the character pronouncing it that way.

As for local names, in Columbia, South Carolina we had a Huger Street that was pronounced "You-gee" St. and Horry County (where Myrtle Beach is located) is pronounced "Orry County"