Eyjafjallajökull

[lethargic_man]

mmseason's suggestion on papersky's blog to listen to the sound clips on the Language Log post about the pronunciation of "Eyjafjallajökull" was all well and good except that it left my brain going "Eyjafjallajökull... Eyjafjallajökull... Eyjafjallajökull..." I had to put on some music to get rid of it.

I wonder how unusual I am that I first encountered jökull as a child, reading A Journey to the Centre of the Earth:

‘See this island of volcanoes’, said the professor, ‘and notice that they all bear the name “jökull”. This means “glacier” in Icelandic and, at that northerly latitude, most of the eruptions reach the light of day through the layers of ice. Hence this name “jökull” applied to all the fire-producing peaks of the island.’

Given the geekiness of my f-list, or friends-of-friends at any rate, not very, I would imagine.