Friday, May 8, 2009
Andrew Aguecheek
Today was the first rehearsal for our Shakespeare camp. It will actually be one of the only two I attend because I will be in North Carolina for two of them. Anyways, a discussion arose concerning the pronunciation of "aguecheek" Okay, so the second part was easy. Cheek is pronounced "Cheek" no matter who you are. "Ague" on the other hand posed a real problem because Matthew's sister told him that "Ague" was the old english equivalent of swine flu, which is true except she pronunced it "Egg-oo." I have always pronounced it just "Egg," correct me if I'm wrong. So here I am calling Matthew M. "Sir Andrew Eggoocheek" and thinking "This pronunciation hurts my brain." Since Matthew M. is the person playing Sir Andrew, I'm going to have to go along with it, but it is still painful to my mouth.
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Why on earth would the "A" be pronounced like an "E"? Shouldn't it be Agoo-Cheek?
ReplyDeleteIt may come from the French word "aguets" which means a "watch," or a "lookout." In which case, the "A" would be short, the "G" would be like the "g" in "gate," and "ue" would be a nasal blend. Interestingly, the "TS" is silent in the word, so to the listener it would sound like the French word even though the "ts" is dropped.
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