I got a question in the comments the other day about the name of this blog and how to pronounce it, so in case anybody else has ever wondered, I thought I’d share with the rest of the class.
First of all, I’d like to share something important I’ve learned, which is that naming your blog deserves the same amount of careful consideration you would give to naming a pet, or your band. It may seem like it makes no difference at first, but next thing you know, you’ve had to re-explain it or re-pronounce it for the thousandth time and everyone is laughing at you behind your back. Had I known this going in, things might have been different…as it is, I am the Hoobastank of blogs.
So here’s the deal. My name is not Jeff Ito. (I am not Japanese.) And I’m not Spanish, either, but the name is.
I took four years of Spanish in high school, not because I particularly cared about the class, but because I really liked the teacher. Mr. Montes was the kind of Spanish teacher who often talked about anything but Spanish for entire class periods at a time, which was a major bonus in my book; what little of the language I’ve managed to retain has been the result of Mr. Montes’ teaching style, and Spanish being one of the relatively few classes I looked forward to attending on a daily basis.
Anyway, “chief” or “leader” in Spanish is “jefe.” And the diminutive suffix is “ito.” The day after Mr. Montes taught us “jefe,” I walked into class and shouted “Hola, Jefe!” to which he responded…you guessed it…”Hola, Jefito!”
Voila. The nickname has stuck. Not a very exciting story, but now you know.
As for pronouncing it, treat the j like an h, as in: hef-EET-oh. One of these days I’ll get around to making a masthead out of the first Lynyrd Skynyrd album cover with the name of the blog on it, but until then, I suppose this will have to do.
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