I am often asked whether I’m glad to be back. My typical response is, “That depends. Back where?” Am I glad to be back at the same old school? Absolutely; I like to teach and Paxon is one of the best public schools out there.
But am I glad to be back in the same old town? No. Not even close. I don’t like the weather; it’s too hot and steamy for far too many months. I don’t like the way the roads are laid (lain? lay? layded?) out; as my grandfather said when he first moved here, “the streets are like spaghetti.”
Furthermore, I’m not glad to be back in Jacksonville because I won’t be able to see the Bears play every week. They’re showing the Jags-Cowboys game on TV right now; I’m stuck having to track the Bears-Packers game on my fantasy league’s StatTracker. Worse, the jets that fly over the stadium during pre-game ceremonies also happen to fly right over my apartment. Noisily, evidently. I didn’t know that until about 4:10 this afternoon. It was close enough that I actually flew through my own roof to see what the commotion was.
Each NFL team should be required to prove that a majority of the people in that team’s television viewing area can correctly pronounce the name of the team. This would solve one of my two football-related complaints about Jacksonville: either the team would be forced to relocate to, say, Los Angeles, or Portland, or anywhere-other-than-here—improving the odds that I’ll see the Bears on television—or people around here would learn one of the correct pronunciations of “Jaguars.”
P.S. The Packers suck.
7 Responses to “There’s no long “I” in “Jaguar.””
- Andrew Jackson Says:
September 10th, 2006 at 5:56 PM
In Kentucky we called them “house cats,” and dealt with them accordingly, and called bears “Sir,” and dealt with them conversely.
Hold fast,
Andy J.
- Doctor Hmnahmna Says:
September 16th, 2006 at 4:23 PM
I’ve found that the Jag-wire pronunciation is more prevalent for people who learned to speak north of the Mason-Dixon line.
JAX may just need to run off the Yankees.
- VDV Says:
September 16th, 2006 at 6:00 PM
You are horribly, terribly mistaken about the Jag-wire pronunciation issue. I think the problem with your sampling method is that you don’t live in Jacksonville, where most locals are just now learning the correct pronunciation.
- aabrock Says:
September 18th, 2006 at 9:38 PM
As I am watching the Jag-wars play on MNF, I feel that this post will be the proper place for the following suggestion:
Dear ,
Stop mentioning your wonderful fantasy picks. No one cares. We don’t think that you are any smarter for having semi-randomly choosing one wide receiver over another after said receiver has a good game. Saying “that is a good play, because I have that guy in my fantasy league. Oh, and it’s good for him since he scored a touchdown and won the game and triggered his $2 million performance bonus.”
Thank you.
- VDV Says:
September 19th, 2006 at 4:55 PM
Why didn’t you join the FFL this year? We had to add in a fake team, the USC Gamecocks, to give us an even number of teams.
- Doctor Hmnahmna Says:
September 24th, 2006 at 1:23 PM
I was listening to the radio this morning, and the Ditka used the Jag-wire pronunciation. And we all know the Ditka can’t possibly be wrong . . . didn’t he trade his entire draft one year for Ricky Williams?
- VDV Says:
September 24th, 2006 at 4:00 PM
The fact that your puny, mortal mind can grasp neither the Will nor the Mystery of the Ditka is no reason to assume that He is capable of error.
Seriously though, I would not cite Chicagoans as authorities on proper pronunciation any more than I would cite Suthunahs. For instance, if you ask a Chicagoan, the Bears play in “Soldier’s” Field (not Soldier) and the big airport is “O’Hara” (not O’Hare).
The fact remains: the predominant pronunciation down here, up until recently, was “Jag-wire.” If my proposal were passed and enforced, we’d be talking about a “Re-name the team” contest for the L.A. Jaguars, or the Portland Jaguars.
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