Speed Bumps

You know those big yellow things in the parking lot that are supposed to prevent us from speeding? Well, they also come in word form! The Houyhnhnms, Thunder-ten-Tronckh, and Don Fernando d'Ibaraa, y Figueora, y Mascarenes, y Lampourdos, y Souza. All of these names were found in the assigned readings. The author may have had a specific purpose when picking these names, and indeed, their desire for naming their characters as such may have even been recognized by the readers. However, all of these names also serve another purpose. They act as a sort of ‘speed bump’ within the reading, slowing down the speed at which the work is comprehended.


Some of you may be saying, wait, those names didn’t have any affect on my comprehension of that work! But think about it for a moment. When coming across names, most people pronounce them in their minds to help catalogue them for future reference. However, when you come across a name that you cannot automatically pronounce, you must stop and either work out the pronunciation, make up one of your own, or skip over it altogether and hope you never have to attempt to say it aloud in class. This exercise has taken your attention away from the main focus of your reading, to understand the story.


If you worked out the pronunciation, you allowed your mind time to jump to other things, to stray away from the work you are reading, if you quickly made one up, then you may become confused when the work is discussed aloud, as the ’correct’ pronunciation and the one that you came up with may be totally different. And, if you skipped it altogether, which is very hard to do, then you have are very likely to draw a blank when asked about that particular character or place, as you merely skimmed the word, unable to understand it.


This brings me to my question: Why do authors use names that are somewhat impossible for the readers to pronounce? I understand that some of the works are older, and the names were more common at that time. But the names, such as the Houyhnhnms, that were merely a product of the authors imagination could have just as easily been written as something more pronounceable. I am not suggesting that all the characters need to be named Bill or Joe, merely that it would be more beneficial to the reader for them to be named something a bit more readily comprehensible than Don Fernando d'Ibaraa, y Figueora, y Mascarenes, y Lampourdos, y Souza (and isn’t that a mouthful).