This doesn’t look good. Rouyaa is over thinking this thing and that will be trouble for Rouyaa in the end. She needs to be doing what Kazom tells her to do, but, we already know she not going to and she will get into trouble too.
It is hard when family goes down the wrong path, or gets influenced by the wrong people. You can’t turn your back on them. But in some cases there might be nothing you can do.
I couldn’t imagine being in her position. Hearing her Sister is in bad trouble, and isn’t allowed to do anything. But you still love your Sister and you have magical powers. What will she do?
Sometimes falling for the wrong guy can really screw you over. Others too in this case. Rouyaa will definitely try to help her sister, but who else is going to be taking a blame share here?
It’s something that hasn’t been focused on much in the story. It will have a repeat in a soon to come comic, but since it won’t spoil any of the story, I’ll explain it now. Andy has a hard time properly pronouncing Rouyaa’s name. So he just calls her Ray now.
And if you think it’s silly, try to pronounce her name and see if you can so it so easily. Here’s a tip, it’s not properly pronounced as it’s spelt in English.
@Robert: “Roh”? After all, “route” is pronounced with a long “OO” sound, like “boot”, rather than like “wrote”… and he has heard her say it a few times.
Of course, Andy may not be big on pronunciations… a lot of people mispronounce even simple, familiar words.
Hmmm, “route” generally rhymes with out and about. In fact, rhyming with root and boot seems uncommon (but not unheard of) to me. Seems that m-w.com gives the “wrong” (root/boot) pronunciation when you click to hear it, though it lists both as permissible ways to say.
To people familiar with looking at Japanese, “ou” is a common way to write a long (double-length) “o” sound, so “rou” sounding like the first part of “wrote” (with a lenghthier vowel) is reasonable.
Yeah, that’s the reason I was pronouncing her name as “roh-yah”. I grew up watching subtitled anime.
As for “route” sounding like “boot”, that’s strongly dependent upon where you live. It’s usually pronounced like “shout” where I live, but I’ve heard that the other pronunciation is far more common in Canada.
“Route” is one of those words that shifts pronunciation a lot. On the West Coast, it’s pronounced like “boot”, when referring to a highway, (for example, “Route 66”) but like “shout” when included in words such as “router” or “routing”. English is funny that way; I’m sure there’s some etymological justification for it.
I don’t know Japanese, so I wouldn’t have made that association. Of course, any “correct” pronunciation of transliterated asian languages is entirely dependent on the Romanization system used, so it’s kind of arbitrary. Same could be said of Arabic, too, although apparently the sounds there are closer to the ones used in English.
@Robert: Actually, in Canada (well, western Canada, anyway) they typically pronounce “about” to rhyme with “boot” – “aboot”. Sounds funny to me, almost like it’s Scottish.
While we might think of Hino Rei and Ayanami Rei as being bignamed Reis and thus inferring that Rei is feminine, there’s plenty of others, fictional and otherwise, with the name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rei
Some examples linked from there include:
Rei Hiroe (manga artist for Black Lagoon, amongst others)
Rei Hizuki: Sky Girls, minor character
Rei Kashino: Manga series Mars character
Rei: Fist of the North Star character, localized name Ray
Rei Ryugazaki: Free! character
Not that much different from someone saying that Pat is clearly a guy’s name because they’ve seen Wheel of Fortune. :p
On the topic of names and gender, cultural background may also be relevant. I can’t say that I’m that familiar with Semitic names, but consider the following male names/nicknames from Russian:
For people who grew up speaking English (at least, American English – can’t speak for the other varieties), we’re used to names ending in an -a (and to a lesser degree, any “soft” vowel (excluding the diminutives like Vinnie, Eddie, Bobby, etc)) to be predominately female names (Joshua being a notable exception). Such doesn’t hold when looking at names from other cultures, however.
Incidentally, to me the name Sid is distinctly feminine-sounding (from Sidney/Sydney being a girl’s name (technically unisex/masculine with the “i”)) and Andy is borderline (being the short form for both Andrew and Andrea, much like Alex from Alexander/Alexis)….
(Although, I’m acculturated to seeing Cid as a guy’s name, from playing way too much Final Fantasy)
I lost track of my parentheses…. Hopefully they’re all opened/closed in the right places…
Names that are gender neutral, but spelled is what differentiate whether there male or female names like Tarry or Terry, Randy or Randi. But, there pronounced the same way.
@Annabelle: Sidney is traditionally a male name. Only recently (in the latter half of the 20th century) has it started being used for girls. Same with a number of used-to-be-typical male names like Aubrey and Taylor.
Pat and Pat; Kelly and Kelly; Kerry and Kerry; Terry and Terry (sometimes Teri/Terri, but I’ve /never/ seen Tarry as a name – as a word, however, it means ‘stay a while, linger’); Lynn and Lynn; Lee and Lee; Dana and Dana; Jessie and Jessie (or Jess and Jess); Justice and Justice…
The list goes on. Spelling difference /do/ occur (Eddie and Eddi, Carrie is rarely a male’s version Joe and Jo (though both are often Joey), Rene and Renee) but they’re not a hard-and-fast rule.
Kattgirl: Well, perhaps it’s not that common of a name. I can only think of one person named Sidney, and she was someone I served with in the Navy.
Perhaps the association is made stronger because Sidney is a city name, and in (at least my dialect/region of) American English, we tend to anthropomorphize cities and such as female/feminine. (Not cities, but other localities for example: The sea is a harsh mistress; motherland; alma mater…)
edit: Unless they have an unambiguously male name, like Lawrence or Charleston…. And even then, if the name isn’t used……
Nope. I’ve heard of Hollywood Squares, but nothing else on that list rings a bell. Of course, I’m a book person and not a movie/tv person, so there’s that…
@Annabelle: Well, the popularity of male names tends to drop off as soon as they start being used for females. There were a few famous Sidneys: Sidney Poitier (black actor), Sid Vicious (of the Sex Pistols), and congressman John McCain’s middle name is Sidney… there are probably a lot more I don’t know.
At least in the US, as a female name, Sydney is usually spelled with a Y – although not exclusively. (The actor Sydney Greenstreet comes to mind.)
I just want to say that, of all the comics I read, right now, this is the comic that I am most interested in watching develop. I want to see this storyline unfold.
I’m also very intrigued by where this is going. CD doesn’t tell me the story ahead of time (I ask him not to), so I get to experience it at the same pace that all you readers do.
This doesn’t look good. Rouyaa is over thinking this thing and that will be trouble for Rouyaa in the end. She needs to be doing what Kazom tells her to do, but, we already know she not going to and she will get into trouble too.
It is hard when family goes down the wrong path, or gets influenced by the wrong people. You can’t turn your back on them. But in some cases there might be nothing you can do.
I couldn’t imagine being in her position. Hearing her Sister is in bad trouble, and isn’t allowed to do anything. But you still love your Sister and you have magical powers. What will she do?
So this is not the first time Eva has been in trouble and Rouyaa was in her bottle during the last war.
Does this mean Eva got up to no good during the last war ??
Sometimes falling for the wrong guy can really screw you over. Others too in this case. Rouyaa will definitely try to help her sister, but who else is going to be taking a blame share here?
Rouyaa is called “Ray” now?
It’s something that hasn’t been focused on much in the story. It will have a repeat in a soon to come comic, but since it won’t spoil any of the story, I’ll explain it now. Andy has a hard time properly pronouncing Rouyaa’s name. So he just calls her Ray now.
Refer to the early comic where He tried to say Rouyaa.
And if you think it’s silly, try to pronounce her name and see if you can so it so easily. Here’s a tip, it’s not properly pronounced as it’s spelt in English.
Huh. I looked it up – there are actual audio pronunciations at this site:
https://www.howtopronounce.com
It’s pronounced “ROO-yuh”… which is exactly as I would have expected…?
Seems pretty easy to me.
But then, maybe Andy just likes the nickname “Rae” better – and it would certainly make it easier to introduce her to the neighbors.
I would have expected “roh-yah”, so it’s understandable how one might get confused.
@Robert: “Roh”? After all, “route” is pronounced with a long “OO” sound, like “boot”, rather than like “wrote”… and he has heard her say it a few times.
Of course, Andy may not be big on pronunciations… a lot of people mispronounce even simple, familiar words.
Hmmm, “route” generally rhymes with out and about. In fact, rhyming with root and boot seems uncommon (but not unheard of) to me. Seems that m-w.com gives the “wrong” (root/boot) pronunciation when you click to hear it, though it lists both as permissible ways to say.
To people familiar with looking at Japanese, “ou” is a common way to write a long (double-length) “o” sound, so “rou” sounding like the first part of “wrote” (with a lenghthier vowel) is reasonable.
Dunno about romanizing Semitic names, however….
> To people familiar with looking at Japanese
Yeah, that’s the reason I was pronouncing her name as “roh-yah”. I grew up watching subtitled anime.
As for “route” sounding like “boot”, that’s strongly dependent upon where you live. It’s usually pronounced like “shout” where I live, but I’ve heard that the other pronunciation is far more common in Canada.
“Route” is one of those words that shifts pronunciation a lot. On the West Coast, it’s pronounced like “boot”, when referring to a highway, (for example, “Route 66”) but like “shout” when included in words such as “router” or “routing”. English is funny that way; I’m sure there’s some etymological justification for it.
I don’t know Japanese, so I wouldn’t have made that association. Of course, any “correct” pronunciation of transliterated asian languages is entirely dependent on the Romanization system used, so it’s kind of arbitrary. Same could be said of Arabic, too, although apparently the sounds there are closer to the ones used in English.
@Robert: Actually, in Canada (well, western Canada, anyway) they typically pronounce “about” to rhyme with “boot” – “aboot”. Sounds funny to me, almost like it’s Scottish.
I see what you did there, CD. Eva in World War II. It’s obviously Eva Braum!
Did I, Dang
Isn’t the female spelling for Ray “Rae”? It doesn’t really matter that much though.
I’ve known girls who’ve spelled it “Ray.” A good friend of mine goes by “Ray-ray” from “Rachel.”
“Rae” seems to rarely occur except as a shortening of Raechel.
Of course, there’s also the gender-neutral “Rei.”
“Rei” is gender neutral? I would have called it more clearly female, mostly because of Rei Hino from Sailor Moon.
While we might think of Hino Rei and Ayanami Rei as being bignamed Reis and thus inferring that Rei is feminine, there’s plenty of others, fictional and otherwise, with the name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rei
Some examples linked from there include:
Rei Hiroe (manga artist for Black Lagoon, amongst others)
Rei Hizuki: Sky Girls, minor character
Rei Kashino: Manga series Mars character
Rei: Fist of the North Star character, localized name Ray
Rei Ryugazaki: Free! character
Not that much different from someone saying that Pat is clearly a guy’s name because they’ve seen Wheel of Fortune. :p
On the topic of names and gender, cultural background may also be relevant. I can’t say that I’m that familiar with Semitic names, but consider the following male names/nicknames from Russian:
Yuri
Nikita
Misha (from Mikhael)
Sasha or Sanya (from Aleksandr)
Vanya (from Ivan)
For people who grew up speaking English (at least, American English – can’t speak for the other varieties), we’re used to names ending in an -a (and to a lesser degree, any “soft” vowel (excluding the diminutives like Vinnie, Eddie, Bobby, etc)) to be predominately female names (Joshua being a notable exception). Such doesn’t hold when looking at names from other cultures, however.
Incidentally, to me the name Sid is distinctly feminine-sounding (from Sidney/Sydney being a girl’s name (technically unisex/masculine with the “i”)) and Andy is borderline (being the short form for both Andrew and Andrea, much like Alex from Alexander/Alexis)….
(Although, I’m acculturated to seeing Cid as a guy’s name, from playing way too much Final Fantasy)
I lost track of my parentheses…. Hopefully they’re all opened/closed in the right places…
Names that are gender neutral, but spelled is what differentiate whether there male or female names like Tarry or Terry, Randy or Randi. But, there pronounced the same way.
“Rae” is much more common in the American South. Particularly in combinations such as Ray Lynn or Rae Ann.
@Annabelle: Sidney is traditionally a male name. Only recently (in the latter half of the 20th century) has it started being used for girls. Same with a number of used-to-be-typical male names like Aubrey and Taylor.
Larry:
Pat and Pat; Kelly and Kelly; Kerry and Kerry; Terry and Terry (sometimes Teri/Terri, but I’ve /never/ seen Tarry as a name – as a word, however, it means ‘stay a while, linger’); Lynn and Lynn; Lee and Lee; Dana and Dana; Jessie and Jessie (or Jess and Jess); Justice and Justice…
The list goes on. Spelling difference /do/ occur (Eddie and Eddi, Carrie is rarely a male’s version Joe and Jo (though both are often Joey), Rene and Renee) but they’re not a hard-and-fast rule.
Yea! TERI!
Yes it is, Teri. 🙂
Kattgirl: Well, perhaps it’s not that common of a name. I can only think of one person named Sidney, and she was someone I served with in the Navy.
Perhaps the association is made stronger because Sidney is a city name, and in (at least my dialect/region of) American English, we tend to anthropomorphize cities and such as female/feminine. (Not cities, but other localities for example: The sea is a harsh mistress; motherland; alma mater…)
edit: Unless they have an unambiguously male name, like Lawrence or Charleston…. And even then, if the name isn’t used……
Blargh. Replied in the wrong spot.
You never heard of Sydney Goldsmith? http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0326134/
Nope. I’ve heard of Hollywood Squares, but nothing else on that list rings a bell. Of course, I’m a book person and not a movie/tv person, so there’s that…
@Annabelle: Well, the popularity of male names tends to drop off as soon as they start being used for females. There were a few famous Sidneys: Sidney Poitier (black actor), Sid Vicious (of the Sex Pistols), and congressman John McCain’s middle name is Sidney… there are probably a lot more I don’t know.
At least in the US, as a female name, Sydney is usually spelled with a Y – although not exclusively. (The actor Sydney Greenstreet comes to mind.)
I just want to say that, of all the comics I read, right now, this is the comic that I am most interested in watching develop. I want to see this storyline unfold.
Glad to hear it. 🙂
I’m also very intrigued by where this is going. CD doesn’t tell me the story ahead of time (I ask him not to), so I get to experience it at the same pace that all you readers do.
And Kazom lays down the law.