St. Joachim

My husband was recounting happy, fun catholic church stories to me while we were eating lunch one day. He was talking about the basketball teams between the different Catholic churches where he grew up, when he said, "Saint Jokum." I, of course, started laughing because I couldn't believe that anyone would willingly be called "Saint Jokum" because that's just really lame. He insisted it was correct.

Tonight I was looking up items on etsy and found a store full of handmade rosaries. I asked my husband if "normal" people could do that, or if the rosary should be blessed or something. He said anyone could do it. I then looked up 'holy water' and another rosary came up. The description began with a quote from St. Francis of Assisi, which I was pronouncing "St. Francis is a sissy" and laughing. I brought up the other St. name that I thought was funny, and my husband reminded me that it was St. Jokum.

I wanted to learn more about this St. Jokum, so I asked him how it was spelled, and he told me 'Joachim.' I googled the name, and I kept looking at it thinking how is this name pronounced "jokum"? That's just weird.

My next stop was Merriam-Webster's web site, where I typed in the name and then listened to the pronunciation. You can do this too. It sounds nothing like "jokum," so I immediately informed my husband of this.

"You big dork! It's not 'Jokum,' it's 'yo-kim'!" I turned up the volume of my laptop so he could hear.

"Well, that's how everyone said it!" he told me.

I then reminded him that the "everyone" was in fact a bunch of little kids and that they were probably saying it that was because it's funny. I thought it was funny, and I have a kid's mentality most of the time. Then I reminded him that he's also the one that goes to the "lieberry" and not the "library," and that perhaps he shouldn't have so much faith in how he learned certain words when he was a kid.

And what really gets me is that Spanish speaking people don't pronounce "j" the way anglos do. They pronounce is as a "y," so my name is often pronounced "yaneene." So how did this "j" name pass them by? It had to be joke. I mean a yoke.