Baw-stock. Bose-tock. Boh-stock. For months, students have been warbling the name of the University's newest and most luxurious library branch.
A new contest aims to help people remember the correct pronunciation for Bostock-the answer, by the way, is not any of the preceding choices.
The name is pronounced "Boss-stock" said freshman Julia Foran, social chair of Duke Student Government's student services committee and coordinator for the competition.
Foran credited the idea to Roy Bostock himself, the former Duke trustee who donated $2 million for naming rights to the library in 2003.
"He thought it would be a fun idea," Foran said.
The Bostock family has donated more than $8 million in total to the University for various projects.
Bostock is providing a $500 prize to whoever wins the contest, which will be judged by President Richard Brodhead, Provost Peter Lange and John Burness, senior vice president for public affairs and government relations.
The winner will be announced at a tent party Saturday as part of Alumni Weekend.
The approximately 70 entries, which were due Wednesday, have been an eclectic bunch, Foran said.
The most repeated entry was the suggestion to put a petting zoo on Main West Quadrangle, which theoretically will compel students to "bah like sheep," she said.
Some of the more mundane proposals included posters to put up on campus or items to give out for free. "It was kind of anything goes," Foran said.
But students may not be entirely at fault for the mispronunciation.
There is no "right or wrong way" to pronounce someone's name, said Ron Butters, professor of English and former chair of the linguistics department.
"Bostock could probably be pronounced three ways," he noted. "I don't think it's clear from the spelling."
In English, usage determines pronunciation because many words-such as those with a silent "k" or those with the letter "o"-are counter-intuitive, he explained.
With proper nouns, it is customary to go with "the prevailing pronunciation," he said.
"Some people won't be able to be educated because they don't even hear a difference," Butters explained. "If you want people to pronounce it a certain way, you need to be famous enough."
As an example, he cited Boston, noting "No one says Boh-ston."
Duke has a rich tradition of mispronunciation, he added-one that includes the University's name.
The traditional southern pronunciation for the university would be "Dy-uke," but recent generations have cut out the 'Y.'
Foran, however, is optimistic about the competition's outcome. The winning promotion will be in place either for the upcoming exam period-when library use is at its peak-or at the beginning of the fall semester after move-in, she said.
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