thedrifter
06-26-09, 07:05 AM
You say luh-ZHUNE ... but the Lejeunes don't
BY MARTHA QUILLIN, Staff Writer
As many as a million people have lived or worked on what most of them called Marine Corps Base Camp luh-ZHUNE since it opened in 1942. Come to find out, many of them weren't where they thought they were.
That sprawling Marine Corps base in Jacksonville, the one named after the Greatest of All Leathernecks, John Archer Lejeune?
It's not luh-ZHUNE , or even luh-JUNE, says a retired Marine who is on a mission to correct the slack-jawed pronunciation he says has corrupted the great major general's surname.
It is, he says, luh-JERN.
"People have spent their whole lives saying the 'june' word," said Patrick Brent, 66, who can't bring himself to repeat the blasphemous error. "And it's wrong. It's incontrovertible."
Brent has come all the way to Jacksonville from his home in Hawaii to tutor reporters and public affairs officers on base today in the proper pronunciation. He doesn't know how it happened, but sometime after he got out of the Marines in 1967, people started getting assigned to a base in Jacksonville that sounds like it was named for a Frenchman.
Lejeune's ancestors were from Switzerland, Brent says, and when they settled in Louisiana and introduced themselves, it was as le-JERNs. Brent doesn't know why they would pronounce a French-language name that way, but he says it was their choice.
Brent is a friend of the family, whose descendants support his efforts, though they let it slide when people botch the name to their faces.
"Our family holds the hope that the family name would once again be spoken correctly throughout the United States Marine Corps," John Lejeune of Baton Rouge writes in a letter that Brent carries with him when he travels.
Brent launched the campaign a year or so ago, saying it was an issue of respect due the World War I officer who is credited with saving the Marine Corps from being turned into a little police division of the Navy. Brent's argument gained steam after he wrote an article for Leatherneck magazine last year and another author did a piece for Marine Corps Times.
Jeanette Walks, who works the front desk at the Comfort Suites in Jacksonville, a few miles from the main entrance to the base, missed those.
"Luh-JERN?" she said, trying to get her mouth around it. "That's the first I've heard of that."
Walks grew up in Jacksonville, and says she's never heard anyone use that pronunciation, including the many Louisianans who have stayed at the hotel.
If the Marines want to change it, she said, "I think people would try to do it, but it would still come out as luh-JUNE."
The commanding officer of the base reportedly says luh-JERN. He's Col. Richard P. Flatau Jr.
That's FLA-toe. We think.
martha.quillin@newsobserver .com or 919-829-8989
Ellie
BY MARTHA QUILLIN, Staff Writer
As many as a million people have lived or worked on what most of them called Marine Corps Base Camp luh-ZHUNE since it opened in 1942. Come to find out, many of them weren't where they thought they were.
That sprawling Marine Corps base in Jacksonville, the one named after the Greatest of All Leathernecks, John Archer Lejeune?
It's not luh-ZHUNE , or even luh-JUNE, says a retired Marine who is on a mission to correct the slack-jawed pronunciation he says has corrupted the great major general's surname.
It is, he says, luh-JERN.
"People have spent their whole lives saying the 'june' word," said Patrick Brent, 66, who can't bring himself to repeat the blasphemous error. "And it's wrong. It's incontrovertible."
Brent has come all the way to Jacksonville from his home in Hawaii to tutor reporters and public affairs officers on base today in the proper pronunciation. He doesn't know how it happened, but sometime after he got out of the Marines in 1967, people started getting assigned to a base in Jacksonville that sounds like it was named for a Frenchman.
Lejeune's ancestors were from Switzerland, Brent says, and when they settled in Louisiana and introduced themselves, it was as le-JERNs. Brent doesn't know why they would pronounce a French-language name that way, but he says it was their choice.
Brent is a friend of the family, whose descendants support his efforts, though they let it slide when people botch the name to their faces.
"Our family holds the hope that the family name would once again be spoken correctly throughout the United States Marine Corps," John Lejeune of Baton Rouge writes in a letter that Brent carries with him when he travels.
Brent launched the campaign a year or so ago, saying it was an issue of respect due the World War I officer who is credited with saving the Marine Corps from being turned into a little police division of the Navy. Brent's argument gained steam after he wrote an article for Leatherneck magazine last year and another author did a piece for Marine Corps Times.
Jeanette Walks, who works the front desk at the Comfort Suites in Jacksonville, a few miles from the main entrance to the base, missed those.
"Luh-JERN?" she said, trying to get her mouth around it. "That's the first I've heard of that."
Walks grew up in Jacksonville, and says she's never heard anyone use that pronunciation, including the many Louisianans who have stayed at the hotel.
If the Marines want to change it, she said, "I think people would try to do it, but it would still come out as luh-JUNE."
The commanding officer of the base reportedly says luh-JERN. He's Col. Richard P. Flatau Jr.
That's FLA-toe. We think.
martha.quillin@newsobserver .com or 919-829-8989
Ellie