I’ve always pronounced it “A-SIX” but the race announcers kept saying, “Welcome to the ‘AXE-s’ Stockholm Marathon.”<\/p>\n Much in the same way that we here in the US pronounce “adidas” as “a-DEE-das,” the rest of the world seems to pronounce it with an entirely different emphasis: “ADD-E-das.”<\/p>\n This isn’t the same thing as the cultural spelling that leads to different pronunciations.\u00a0 Believe me, if anybody knows the value of an “I”<\/a> it’s this guy.\u00a0 For example, in the US we spell it “aluminum” and pronounce it as such.\u00a0 The rest of the world has the 13th element on the Periodic Table (Al) as “aluminIum,”(EDITOR’S NOTE: ‘I’ capitalized for emphasis only… it’s not spelled SanDeE-STAR style<\/a>) which when you think about how a lot of the other elements end in “-ium” maybe there really should be an “I” in there.<\/p>\n I actually try and avoid buying a brand of shoe because I’m self conscious about asking for it.\u00a0 I feel like every time I try and say the name, the clerk looks at me like I’m an unfrozen cave man traveling through time trying to blend in on a an alien world that used to be earth but now is overrun with super intelligent but cuttingly sarcastic youths.\u00a0 Which come to think of it, might be an entirely accurate description of me.<\/p>\n In any case, to this day I still don’t know how to pronounce “Saucony.”<\/p>\n I always want to say “sauce-o-knee.”\u00a0 But it might be “SAW-cone-E.”\u00a0 They’re an American company and I want to support them as they make a great shoe… or have in the past for me.\u00a0 But I wish they would use their parent company name — Wolverine World Wide.\u00a0 There’s a name I can remember.<\/p>\n All of this brings to mind two of my short-lived drama days.\u00a0 In a high school play I directed and costarred in.\u00a0 It was about a chance encounter with an agent that has a obsessed guy think he has a shot of writing a script for Al Pacino with his writing partner.\u00a0 He breaks down all of Pacino’s movie roles to determine the ideal character for him to play.\u00a0 During the monologue, I’d always stumbled over “Serpico.”\u00a0 I wanted to say “sir-PICO” as in I guess the knight of a street in Los Angeles.\u00a0 Even after watching the movie wherein they say Pacino’s character’s name no less than 738 times, I still struggled with it (“it rhymes with Pepsi-co” I think somebody told me).\u00a0 And yet on the day of the competition performance, I did what I always do.\u00a0 I slurred the word and went as quickly as possible over it, hoping the speed would cover up my naivety and shortcomings.\u00a0 In normal every day conversations I often speak too quickly and try and hide how little I know as I think talking fast makes me sound like I know what I’m doing… when in fact 99.734% of the time I have no clue… and the other 0.266% of the time I have at best half a clue.<\/p>\n The other mis-speak came in my freshman year at UNC when I did a play for my now uber-friend Brent Simon.\u00a0 There was a line about somebody pulling a “diva” moment.\u00a0 I pronounced it as “DIE-va” and Brent pulled me aside to correct me.\u00a0 He didn’t do it in front of other people, it was just a quick, subtle aside so as not to embarrass me.\u00a0 It was a kindness I always appreciated.\u00a0 I do recall arguing at first with him that I thought it derived etymologically from Lady GoDiva but that turned out to be entirely false.\u00a0 Then as now I should always listen to Brent.<\/p>\n So the point of all this is that I guess I’m glad I signed with Brooks<\/a>.\u00a0 I know how to spell and pronounce that corporate overlord.\u00a0 Of course that might just be the very definition of a xenophobic.<\/p>\n To be fair, nobody else offered to sponsor me, let alone promised me a signing bonus.\u00a0 Until I receive my dollar, I’m a free agent and willing to renegotiate.\u00a0 Any volunteers?\u00a0 Or should I say, any vol-LOON-tears?<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.runkevinrun.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/1200px-Asics.svg_-300x106.png\")
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