Have You Met Xochitl?
The lovely Xochitl (pronounced "So-cheel," or just "Zock"
for short) Paredes, a regular at the Jazz Cafe on Wednesday nights, graduated
from
Grad School at UT in May 2004 with a Masters of Fine Arts in Design.
Text
of the letter I sent to Xochitl Salsa, a brand of gourmet salsa available at
Central Market:
My beloved girlfriend's name is Xochitl, and we love the salsa, but we have a
few comments on the pronunciation you advertise on your labels and website.
Although you avoided the most common mistake (pronouncing the "x" as a
"z" instead of more of an "s"), you hit on exactly the very
worst pet peave she has about her name being mispronounced: being called
"So-SHEE." She HATES it.
Now, I mispronounce her name in affectionate jest all the time and even have
a little fun with it: "Zock," "Zockie," "Zockety"
""Sochimo," "Sochimoko," "Sochomokino,"
"So-chismo," "Zock-it-l," etc. She laughs along with me and
digs my pseudo-creativity. But the ONE single pronunciation she has asked me to
avoid is "So-shee." She even told me that she felt reluctant to tell
me about her pet peave because she feared I might just use it against her given
my proclivity to play with the pronunciation. She'll play along with any
mispronunciation except "So-Shee". I'm not kidding. It makes her blood
curdle and sends bad vibes chilling up and down her spine.
There might be other pronounciations, but she is adamant about it being
pronounced "So-CHeel" (with a "ch" and an "l" at
the end) not "So-SHee" (with an "sh" and no "l" at
the end).
I noticed you modified it to the "correct" pronunciation on the
home page of your website, but the labels of your salsa as well as this
"contact us" page still has the "So-Shee" mispronunciation
spelled out phonetically. I hope you will work to correct this glaring
misimpression and save the world from further mispronunciations of a beautiful
name. :-)
“Have you met Xochitl?” Someone said as we shook hands
She was just Xochitl to me
Then I said Xochitl You're a girl who understands
I'm a man who must be free.
And all at once I lost my breath
And all at once was scared to death
And all at once I owned the earth and sky
Now I met Xochitl
And well keep on meeting till we die
Xochitl and I
