The Atlantic Monthly will publish its longest article ever this summer, a three-part, 60,000-word piece about the cleanup of the World Trade Center site by William Langewiesche, who’s written for the magazine for 10 years. What Explainer wants to know is, how do you pronounce “Langewiesche”?
“The problem is I don’t know how to pronounce my name!” Langewiesche says. “I’ve been dragging this name around like a tail my whole life.”
Langewiesche calls the American pronunciation—”lang-wishy”—ugly. Sometimes, he says, he gives its pronunciation a little French twist. Other times, when appropriate, he follows the all-American tradition of just shortening his name—to Lang.
But most often, he uses the German pronunciation (long-gah-vee-shuh), which you can hear him say by clicking here.
