How do you pronounce all those names, anyway?

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11:30 A.M. CST

Thursday night, our totally excellent news editor, Mia Bush, asked me if I’d seen a pronunciation guide. Apparently one moved on the wires, but it was anemic. I told her I’d see what I could do.

Naturally, the first thing I did was to run a Google search. I found a LOT of references to the Voice of America web site, where there is, in fact, a pronunciation guide for Iraqi names. Unfortunately, however, most of the list is names of people, not places.

My next stop was Merriam Webster’s Geographical Dictionary.

] They had most of the city names I wanted and they told how to pronounce them. Unfortunately, though, they used umlauts, schwas, diacritical marks and other things I’ve not used since I took a voice and diction class 20 years ago.

So I painstakingly transcribed the pronunciations for almost three dozen place names and then tried to unravel them into something approximating English. By 3 a.m. Friday, I was done. I slept with a feeling of satisfaction.

...Which evaporated Friday when I picked up my notes. What was I thinking? I don’t know how to pronounce those words. Heck, I’m a native of South Carolina. I can’t pronounce ANYthing correctly!

So I checked out the experts database at Iowa State University. Most better colleges have similar web pages. I found someone listed as an expert in linguistics, Professor of English Dan Douglas. He and a colleague, Professor John Levis, looked over my list, marked up my errors and even dug up a few pronunciations I hadn’t been able to find.

The result was a nice guide to 36 war-related proper names we ran in Saturday’s Register. A few examples:

Chamchamal - sham-shah-MAHL
Iraqi forces abandoned positions in this northern town Thursday

Karbala - KAR-bah-luh
U.S. Army troops reached this city Monday

Kut - COOT
U.S. Marines are reportedly closing in on this city

Nasiriyah - nah-si-REE-ya
Key river crossing and site of heavy fighting

Rumaila - roo-MY-luh
Large oil fields west of Basra captured last week by U.S.

Sulaymaniyah - SOO-lay-mahn-ya
Capitol city of Kurdish forces in northern Iraq

My news editor was absolutely delighted. And I was delighted to make her happy. She and her staff have taken very good care of me this week. I hope you all have the good fortune to one day work with a copy desk as great as ours.

I don’t know quite what to think about the four-to-six day delay that was reported late last night by Reuters. It’s been denied in other reports and it seems to fly in the face of statements made lately by Rumsfield and Bush. I’d sure like to take a few days off. If I knew for sure they ARE taking a break...

I’ve not mentioned them lately, but our reporters have found a number of compelling stories about Iowans at war. Ken Fuson -- he won the Ernie Pyle award last year -- told the story of Jill Kiehl, who’s 21, seven months pregnant and whose husband, James, is missing in action. Remember the five captured U.S. soldiers who were captured in Nasiriyah shown on Al-Jazerra? James Kiehl was a member of that 12-person unit.

You should also go here, too, and check out the powerful photo of Jill that ran on Wednesday’s 1A. Scroll down and look for the photo of the woman with the teddy bear.

Also Wednesday, Colleen Krantz reported that the University of Iowa ROTC members have been told to avoid anti-war folks by not wearing their uniforms.

And Iowa has lost one soldier -- oddly enough, also near Nasiriyah. Marine Sgt. Bradley Korthaus drowned while crossing the Saddam Canal, a man-made irrigation river that runs between Baghdad and Nasiriyah. He was declared missing on Tuesday. His body was found Wednesday.

Thursday, friends and family remembered Korthaus. And Satuday, Korthaus’ fiance questions the order that sent Bradley across the canal.

Apparently, a photographer for the Washington Times witnessed the drowning and called it "a needless tragic accident."

We contributed a map locating the Saddam Canal. We couldn’t find it on maps or on Google, but I finally found a reference -- and a map -- of something called the Saddam River on a United Nations Environment Program report, which we downloaded in PDF format. It turned out to be just what we were looking for.

charles.apple@pilotonline.com