Hey everyone! As of today, I am back from Key West. My back is sunburned, my face is tanned, and my spirits are high. It was a fantastic trip.
As I play catch-up with my life, I’m pleased to present Casey Cole. She’s a singer, a performer, and the kind of friend who immediately accepts when you invite her  to see Hannah Montanta: The Movie, followed by karaoke in Korea Town.
Like me, Casey has been struck by a weird little trend that’s sweeping New York right now: Apparently, we’ve been mispronouncing Waiting for Godot for our entire lives. Every single one of us. What’s to be done? Take a look at Casey’s reaction, then weigh in with yours…
“Is it GOD-dough?†“Yes, I think so…â€
By CASEY COLE
I have a problem. I’m all upset over the pronunciation of “Godot“.
As you may know, we Americans have been pronouncing it “Go-DOUGH” for years. Then suddenly, back in April, director Anthony Page (who worked with author Samuel Beckett on the first British revival of the play, so I’m going to trust him on this) told us in The New York Times that we’ve been pronouncing it incorrectly.
To quote Mr. Page, “Go-DOUGH is an Americanism, which isn’t what the play intended.â€
OUCH.
That hurts because I love this play. I began my love affair with Beckett in college, mostly because of a literature professor I had my sophomore year. He was a doctoral student, barely older than the teenagers in his “Literature Types: Drama†class, and he had an English accent that made me swoon. He began class one Tuesday afternoon by reading from Beckett’s short play Krapp’s Last Tape, a searing piece about loss and regret. A few minutes into the reading, he suddenly stopped, stared straight at his script, and sat silent for quite a while. When he finally looked up, he had tears streaming down his face, said “I’m sorry. I can’t do this,” and walked straight out of the classroom.
I couldn’t breathe.
Five minutes went by. Ten. Students began to leave. After twenty minutes, it was clear he wasn’t coming back. The rest of us left, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it until our next class, when the professor greeted us with a slight apology for “what happened on Tuesday†and then never mentioned it again.
Now I realize that it’s entirely possible the professor spent the remainder of the class period at the pub laughing at his stupid American students, but ever since that day, Beckett has given me a breathless feeling.
So imagine my excitement when I found out that Waiting for Godot was coming to Broadway, with an excellent cast directed by Anthony Page. Then I read Mr. Page’s comments, I was thrown into turmoil. Now, every time I think about the play or (God forbid) talk to someone about it, I have this internal struggle about how to say the name. The grammar/accuracy bitch in me says “you have to say it correctly – it’s GOD-dough”, while the anti-pretentious me says “don’t be a douche – it’s Go-DOUGH”.
Yesterday, I was sitting in Studio 54, watching the first few minutes of this largely brilliant revival, and the first time Bill Irwin said the name “GOD-doughâ€, the American Apparel-clad hipster in front of me leaned over to his date and whispered “See? I TOLD you.†Wow – I do NOT want to be that person.
What to do? Please tell me I’m not alone in this “GOD-doughâ€/â€Go-DOUGH†dilemma. Or at least share a similar experience you’ve had with another name or fact. Seriously guys, please help me. I’m losing sleep over this.
And for the record, my college professor pronounced “Godot†the incorrect American way, but with a British accent.
16 responses so far ↓
1 Niki // Jun 16, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Well, given that it was originally “En attendant Godot,” that would argue for the accent on the second syllable (i.e., what you’re used to), since that’s how the name Godot is/would be pronounced in French.
2 benvolio // Jun 16, 2009 at 2:17 pm
I watched the BBCWorld coverage of the US elections, and every single British presenter referred to the incoming POTUS as BARrack, making it sound like they were referring to army camp shelters.
It’s go-DOUGH.
3 Carol Elaine // Jun 16, 2009 at 2:32 pm
It’s a French name, it should be pronounced the French way, i.e. go-DOUGH.
(I’m American, but my last name is French and I took French as my foreign language in high school. I’m unyielding in this matter. I tend to be like that with all languages, which is why native Angelenos look at me funny when I pronounce Los Feliz and San Pedro with the correct Spanish pronunciation instead of the Los Angeles-ized pronunciation.)
4 Kyle // Jun 16, 2009 at 2:39 pm
The British put the accent on the first syllable of lots of words and names that would have the accent on the second syllable if they were American. Do the people acting in the revival have/use British accents? Then I guess GOD-dough would be the way to go; if they have American accents, I think they should say go-DOUGH.
It’s a difference in pronounciation – I guess you could call it an Americanism, if you’re also going to say that putting the accent on the second syllable of garage or ballet is an Americanism.
I mean, if there was a British play called “The Ballet Dancer in the Garage” would we have to emphasize the first syllable of ballet and garage when we spoke the title out loud? Godot’s a little different because it’s a proper name. But if you’re going back to the original name of the character surely in French you would say go-DOUGH, as Niki points out above.
5 Rube Goldberg // Jun 16, 2009 at 2:53 pm
YES! We read this in my AP Lit class and watched videos of stage versions. Everyone in my class pronounced it “go-Dough” and it drove me nuts that the performers in the video were saying “GOD-dough” (they were also channeling the bumbling messenger from His Girl Friday which…ugh). My issue with the “GOD-dough” pronunciation is that it makes the play seem a bit heavy-handed. Yes, they are waiting for God to arrive, but at least the “go-DOUGH” doesn’t make it so blatantly obvious.
Thank you for bringing up this topic — I really needed to get that out of my system.
6 floretbroccoli // Jun 16, 2009 at 3:03 pm
It seems that the British go out of their way to pronounce words in other language with the stress on the wrong syllable.
7 jgm22 // Jun 16, 2009 at 4:08 pm
WWBD (What Would Beckett Do)? If that’s how he wanted it pronounced that’s how it should be pronounced, right? He could have spelled it Godeux or some other phonetic variation – it really doesn’t matter.
Do you pronounce Siouxie as Sio-ksy? No, it’s pronounced Susie as the artist herself intended. Case closed!
8 jen // Jun 16, 2009 at 4:44 pm
I gotta go with the others who are crying foul. If they want to be super strict, then the french pronunciation should be the last word. And if they don’t, then the Brits are apparently guilty of “anglicizing” just as they call our pronunciation an “americanism”. If the play were called “Waiting for Bernard”, would they insist that only the British pronunciation of this French/German name is correct?
9 Beth C. // Jun 16, 2009 at 4:51 pm
I guess in things like this you have to defer to the man who invented it. Beckett, as you know, does nothing by accident in his scripts. Nothing. If he wanted the name “mispronounced” GOD-ough he wanted it that way on purpose.
It seems more heavy handed than he would normally go for, but at the same time he sometimes goes the heavy handed route for a reason, see: Endgame.
As for me, at this point I guess I’m going to pronounce it GOD-ough when I remember, not worry about it if I don’t, and not bother to correct anyone who pronounces it “go-DOUGH” either.
10 Dustin L // Jun 16, 2009 at 5:37 pm
Beth and jgm22, I can’t really get behind the idea that the author’s intent is the final word, and there’s a metric ton of critical writing that will back me up. If a specific idiosyncratic pronunciation was important to Beckett, he should have given us that pronunciation IN THE TEXT. As he didn’t, I agree that since it’s presented as a French name, it should be pronounced in the French manner.
I also agree that it’s a silly thing to make a big deal about. In college I directed a (rather low-rent but decently acted) production of Endgame, and despite some research we were never sure if the pronunciation was meant to be “Klahv” or “Klove,” but we ultimately chose “Klahv,” because it’s less likely to make people think of black cigarettes and the smell of Christmas.
11 sb // Jun 16, 2009 at 6:04 pm
I actually don’t know that Godot is presented as a French name, because the setting of the whole thing is ambiguous at best, but I once read a thing that said Beckett regretted insisting on the GOD-dough pronunciation because it made people think about God, which he wasn’t necessarily wanting them to do. Frankly, I think it should depend on the actors–if you’re British, do it your way, if you’re American, do it yours.
Actually, the pronunciation question I always had was how do you pronounce Pozzo? I feel like it should be the Italian-ish way (POH-tzo), but I’ve heard people pronouncing it with a regular z.
12 Madge // Jun 16, 2009 at 8:29 pm
Kyle – I want to see “The Ballet Dancer in the Garage.”
13 Michael // Jun 16, 2009 at 8:39 pm
This is something of an old battle among theater practitioners.
French accentuation is somewhat different from that of English–’Godot’ in French, the original language, would be more like two accented syllables, a spondee, with perhaps the slightest additional emphasis on the second syllable. To bring the thing into English speech, where accentuation is more pronounced (so to speak), accentuation will tend to be adjusted to the particular English of the production–and British English, as many have noted (with its almost perverse refusal to match other languages–ever heard an Englishman pronounce “Nicaragua?”) has decided to accent the first syllable of ‘Godot,’ American English the second. There are two distinct pronunciations.
As for the claim of authorial sanction (and we SHOULD listen to Beckett’s intentions), I think it’s phony: Beckett (Irish) approved of the British pronunciation for a British director for a British production, and said director later decided to make fuss about it in an interview and lord it over the Americans.
So the British pronunciation in American mouths sounds fussy to me, and I, too, find the near-homonym with “God” blatant and reductive.
The fact is that by now–almost two generations after the play appeared–the title of the play has entered the American vernacular with an American pronunciation, which tells me that Americans should say it their way unless they’re making some better point than “This director’s a know-it-all.” After all, the original pronunciation of Shakespeare’s Shrew’s name would have been somewhere between “Kate” and “cat” (something like “Kett”), which is crucial to some puns in the dialogue that are lost now. But I don’t expect ever to hear a production that forces that now-eccentric pronunciation into modern mouths.
GODD-oh? Feh.
14 park // Jun 17, 2009 at 2:14 am
Working in the room with Walter Asmus, Beckett’s long time assistant, would lead me to GOD- oh.
He insisted on that pronunciation in an American production four years ago.
15 Laura Mc. // Jun 17, 2009 at 2:15 am
Ooh. Saw this production and chewed on the same question.
It’s quite strange when actors who speak with American accents pick one word which is different than the rest of their speech patterns.
I actually don’t see the point in asking this cast to speak in this awkward fashion. Theater/Acting is a living art form, and if it can’t be carried out through natural speech.. it loses a lot of its potential for suspending disbelief and reaching out to the audience.
16 Terrence Brann // Jul 1, 2011 at 10:16 am
Godot is not a French name, as people keep saying in this thread. 1) It was invented by Beckett, and he said it is pronounced with the accent on the first syllable 2) In the play, one of the characters mis-hears the name “Pozzo” as “Godot.” That could only happen if Godot is pronounced with the accent on the first syllable. 3) When you listen to French people discussing the play, even THEY don’t put the accent on the second syllable.
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