You say puh-TAY-toe; I say . . .

You've probably been wondering about the proper pronunciation of "Gerard," as in Gerard Manley Hopkins. Like me, you may cringe when at what is far and away the most common pronunciation, "jur-ARD," because (diseuphony aside) you seem to remember your freshman English teacher at St. Joe's said that the stress falls on the first syllable: "JUR-urd."

Problem solved. In an excellent video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vL4lsEcE-js), John Wain pronounces it with equal stress on both syllables (at about the 4:55 mark). That settles it for me.

Even if -- unlikely event -- you don't care about how to pronounce the name, the video is well worth watching. Wain, a 20th century atheist, is wonderfully sympathetic to the 19th century Jesuit. And he, Wain, that is, pulls of a remarkable feat in narrating some of Hopkins's lines in a way that almost make them understandable. (Most of Hopkins's poems, of course, are so intricate, convoluted, and just plain strange that you really need to see the words and think about them to make any sense out of them.)

An extra bonus. If, like me, you haven't turned to "God's grandeur" in a while, check out Wain's recital beginning at the 6:48 minute mark of part 5 of the video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKDxgfvUCNo).