LAURA

Recently, I was speaking to a woman about her husband being in a nursing home and I said that she probably had met our niece Laura because her husband is a resident on the wing where Laura works.

The woman said, "I thought I knew all the girls."

I said, "She works the early shift and she also works a lot of overtime." The woman asked me to describe Laura and when I did, she said, "Oh, you mean Laura."

She was pronouncing it "LAH-RUH" and I was saying "LORE-UH". I said, "They pronounce it like LOR-UH." She answered, "Well, that's not right." I answered, "Well, that's how it's pronounced in the movie and the song." "Well, I've never heard it pronounced that way!" I said, "I think Frank Sinatra was considered the epitome of pronunciation and he sings it LORE-UH."

The woman still adamantly said I was wrong. I even spelled it for her. I said, "Your pronunciation is like Lara in Dr. Zhivago." I could hardly believe her insistence and wondered why it was important to her. I gave her some other examples of "AU" pronunciations, such as "Taurus," "Laurence Olivier" and "caucus", to no avail. The woman just shook her head.

I called Laura's mother and said, "Pronounce your daughter's name." She said, "Norma". [Obviously I should have been specific.] I said, "No, the other one!" Of course she said "LORE-UH."

I called a friend and said, "Pronounce your daughter's name." She said, "LORE-UH." My friend said she loved Mary Tyler Moore as Laura Petrie and Little House On The Prairie author Laura Ingalls Wilder, and that was the reason she chose her daughter's name.

Les asked, "How about Lara Logan?" Oh, my, she pronounces it LARE-UH, unlike Lara Spencer!