Here’s another installment from my Tucson Festival of Books series.
This lecture focused entirely on Arizona and featured a panel of three authors. One of the panelists was the great-great-granddaughter of Sedona Schnebly, the person after whom Sedona, Arizona, is named. This connection inspired me to attend the lecture because I enjoy hiking in Sedona and was eager to meet a descendant of the city’s namesake.
Gregory McNamee talked about his book “The University of Arizona: A History in 100 Stories,” which sounds like it would be boring, but it wasn’t. When the University approached him to write the book, they requested “a narrative history of the University of Arizona.” In response, he stated, “No, you don’t want that. You want a collection of stories from the University’s 140-year history.” His lecture was really engaging, and now I’m very interested in reading his book.
About ten minutes after the lecture began, a girl walked in late and took a seat in the last available chair in the front row. For some inexplicable reason, she was wearing a pointy witches’ hat, prompting one of the volunteers to tap her on the shoulder and ask her to remove it. It was a random yet amusing moment.
During the lecture, McNamee discussed the pronunciation of some roads in Tucson. A significant question arose about how to correctly pronounce “Ina” Road. Watch this video and see if you said the name to yourself correctly:
I always enjoy attending the Arizona talks because they are consistently fun and I get to learn various state trivia. For example, I learned that the Arizona Constitution states that “university instruction shall be as nearly free as possible.” This interpretation by the Arizona Supreme Court in 1935 suggests that university fees should not be excessive or unreasonable. I suppose I need to take out my pen and write to my congressmen and complain.
My books Memory Road Trip (e-book or paperback) and Time Traveled (e-book or paperback) are both available! You can also find them at most major international book sites.
Krista Marson 
Here in New Zealand a lot of placenames in Maori were terribly Anglicised and since the 1980s There has been a push to pronounce them correctly in the media and spell them correctly on maps etc. and it takes a generation or two for it to change in the local vernacular. Overseas visitors have a terrible time, but once you know how the vowels are pronounced Maori is actually straightforward. Some of the places named after British locations and surnames are actually pretty hard to figure out as well, eg. my son lives in Gloucester St… (I learned to say it as Glosster)
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It’s these little innuendos that no one really talks about that makes places so interesting.
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