"Liddell" indeed pronounced his name "LIDD'l". Why can't Americans get it
right? Probably for the same reason we insist on mispronouncing Kittell
(KITT'l, not Kit-TELL); when we see a name ending in -ELL, we have this
urge to accent the last syllable.
More interesting: Henry Liddell had a daughter, Alice Liddell,
who utterly fascinated a fellow don at Oxford, a mathematician name of
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. When she was 12, and he just over 30, he took
her boating and made up stories to tell her. He later wrote them down, as
_Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_. Little Alice was Alice LIDDell. He of
course turned his middle and first names into Latin, and back to English,
to create the pen-name Lewis Carroll.
A VERY Greek matter indeed! Next on the docket will be the
mispronunciation of the old Oxford master, Benjamin Jowett (most famed for
his [mis]translations of Plato). (Anyone know the grafitto about his name?)
Edward Hobbs
Wellesley