Waldie on Angeleno/Angelino
D.J. Waldie, whose writings about Los Angeles should be read by anyone who cares about writing and Los Angeles, has responded to my earlier query about the correct spelling of Angeleno/Angelino (which is often favored by the NYT). His response ot’c'…, which for all you bloggers out there, is an abbreviation for off the ‘continued…’ the new cool way of saying ‘after the jump’.
The name of the place
Los Angeles is the place name of several towns in Latin America. In those places, the customary collective name is Angeleño . . . with a ~ (tilde) over the n . . . and pronounced (roughly) ahn-hel-lay-nyo.
In the early part of the 20th century, the Los Angeles Times printed a little phonetic guide on the front page of every edition explaining to tourists how the city’s name should be pronounced (in a pretty good approximation of the Spanish pronunciation).
The problem, of course, was getting Anglo mouths around the ñ (enye) . . . and, I suppose, lingering contempt for the city’s Mexican past. The Spanish elided into more socially acceptable Italian and was often spelled Angelino.
Today, Angeleno (no tilde) is used as the collective name of the city’s residents (and used as an adjective). This spelling is generally pronounced as An-jell-lee-no . . . a rough approximation the short-lived “Italian” spelling
D. J. Waldie
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