We had an open house today

[conuly]

Eva was pretty impressed with the school - I remember Ana wasn't that interested! They're so different in so many ways. This school had already passed my "do they run this school like a prison" test, and I got the opportunity to ask my Eva-specific questions, which were answered to my satisfaction.

Today is also Sukkot, which means that there were an awful lot of Orthodox Jews on the boat (and presumably other ones who don't dress so visibly), causing Eva to ask carefully if there's a holiday today. Now, here's the thing. I can look it up. I can hear people say it. But for whatever reason, if I ever am called upon to say "Sukkot", I find myself stalling out and asking "Wait. Was that a long U or a short U?" and I certainly don't want to make a mistake where other people who know how to say it can hear me. Fortunately, Chabad was also out in force asking people if they were Jews, and normally I wouldn't give them the time of day but since they approached us I felt it was okay to counter-ask how to say the name. And whoops, I've already lost it.

Eva also took the opportunity to peek in a public sukkah while nobody was using it, so all and all it was an educational outing. We have another open house Saturday morning.

Comments

[gingicat]

Soo-Coat in Hebrew.
Suckkus in Yiddish.

[chomiji]

Yup. The machzor that we used for the High Holy Days had the evening prayers in which we ask God to "'spread over us your sukkah of peace." I love that.

[conuly]

Listen, it's in one ear and out the other.

But I also had serious doubts about the propriety of playing "pass the pigs" on the boat while sitting opposite a Muslim family, so I'm willing to entertain the possibility that this has everything to do with my personal issues and nothing to do with the inherent unpronouncibility of what really ought to be an easy word.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

I don't know this game. Probably something more halal would be better on the ferry.

[conuly]

It's basically a not-much-thought dice game, except instead of rolling dice you're tossing pigs in the air and allotting points based on how they fall.

The alternative was zombie dice, and human brains aren't halal either.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Pig Mania. How do you deal with one of the falls being "making bacon"?

[conuly]

Hasn't come up!

We've houseruled that if you drop one or more pigs off the table, you get to keep your score but your turn ends.

[spikethemuffin]

By coincidence, one of the things I have trouble remembering is whether the person to whom I am speaking is pronounced "aw-na" or "aa-na" when her name is spelled Ana (see also Ay-va or Eev-a), and I literally have to make up little rhymes about them in my head to keep it straight.

[zhelana]

Sue Coat, I think.

[larryhammer]

That's a close enough approximation for conversational purposes.

[dine]

don't think I've ever heard Sukkot said aloud, and have always wondered how to pronounce it as well. having seen it in the comments, I just hope it sticks in my brain until next year!

it's odd, but somehow I've ended up on the chabad.org mailing list - definitely not Jewish, haven't signed up for anything even close to related, and am wondering how (and why) they got my e-mail. I've never opened one, but possibly I should, so I can figure out how to unsubscribe myself

[conuly]

That is quite odd.

[gale_storm]

It's great that people can nowadays look up words online and hear them played out. Not that it would help retention, but it's a darned good use for Google.

[cellio]

You're probably being thrown by the doubled 'k', which in English would tend to indicate a short vowel preceding it. The thing here is that it's *transliteration*, which sometimes carries signal other than pronunciation. For example, some people use 'q' for one of the letters that sounds like 'k' and 'k' for the other one, so you can tell which Hebrew letter it was when you're looking at the translit. That doesn't mean that "qaddish" is pronounced with a "Q" sound at the beginning (though, granted, without a 'u' I don't know what that would sound like exactly).

In the case of "Sukkot" (and also "Shabbat" and other words), the doubled consonant isn't about pronunciation; it's to indicate the presence of a particular diacritical in the Hebrew, something called a "dageish".

[conuly]

I'm pretty sure I'm mostly being thrown by random social anxiety squirrels, but let's go with your answer!

[cellio]

Darn squirrels. They should be out gathering nuts for winter, not bothering you.

[conuly]

*hums*

Sometimes you feel like a nut! Sometimes you don't!