You Say Bocker, I Say Backer

sneakers · Post by **sneakers** » Thu Aug 21, 2003 12:32 am

Which is it, Rickerbacker or Rickenbocker? What's your pronunciation? I've heard it 50/50 so far.

jps · Post by **jps** » Thu Aug 21, 2003 1:51 am

Backer

dave4004 · Post by **dave4004** » Thu Aug 21, 2003 4:03 am

Mr. Rickenbacker preferred backer, that's good enough for me.

360dave · Post by **360dave** » Thu Aug 21, 2003 6:30 am

backer

rictified · Post by **rictified** » Thu Aug 21, 2003 7:51 am

backer, boy they sure must talk funny in Pa.

kennyhowes · Post by **kennyhowes** » Thu Aug 21, 2003 8:06 am

I've said it before, I'll say it again: I think people say "Bocker" because of the high exposure of one Orville Redenbacher ("or my name isn't...").

If you would like to pronounce it "authentically," it'd be something like RIKE-in-BOCHH-er. I do believe it'd be spelled different too.

Backer it is.

rob · Post by **rob** » Thu Aug 21, 2003 8:24 am

I pronounce it bahker.
Is there a such a thing as a wrong pronunciation?

leftybass · Post by **leftybass** » Thu Aug 21, 2003 8:30 am

There was some discussion of this a while back about what was what...

Kenny Howes got the low-down from John Hall himself, and maybe he will re-play the story here for us.

As stated in Richard Smith's book the original ancestoral spelling for the name was Richenbacher(Rye-Ken BOCK-er) but somewhere along the line it was Anglecized to Rickenbacker(Rick-en-BACK-er)---there was also a story of something being misspelled and a decision was made to stick with it(Kenny will have to chime in on this...)

kennyhowes · Post by **kennyhowes** » Thu Aug 21, 2003 8:38 am

For more on this, see also this somewhat humorous thread from the Nick Thiel board:

http://www.voxtalks.com/cgi-bin/UltraBoard/UltraBoard.pl?Action=ShowPost&Board=VT14&Post=325&Idle=0&Sort=0&Order=Descend&Page=0&Session=kennyhowes.106149039040915

rictified · Post by **rictified** » Thu Aug 21, 2003 9:00 am

Robert, how many ways can you pronounce Robert?
Robert

mortivan · Post by **mortivan** » Thu Aug 21, 2003 10:48 am

We have a restaurant here named "Chez Robert" I always thought was pronounced as spelled. I was once corrected (and laughed at) by an ex-girlfriend who pronounced it "Shay Roh-bay."

Then again, she pronounced "Lyons" as "Lee-on." She laughed at me that time too.

BTW: I broke off the relationship.

So anyway, that's 2 for "Robert"

mortivan · Post by **mortivan** » Thu Aug 21, 2003 10:52 am

Almost forgot - I pronounce it "bocker" although I know it's not correct. But, nobody laughs at me when I do ...

tim4003 · Post by **tim4003** » Thu Aug 21, 2003 11:48 am

I've always said "bocker", but since buying my first in 2001, I say "backer".
That's the way RIC says it, so that's the way I'll say it. Who'd know better than them!

tim4003 · Post by **tim4003** » Thu Aug 21, 2003 11:50 am

Sorry, double posted by mistake!

doctorwho · Post by **doctorwho** » Thu Aug 21, 2003 12:02 pm

When my great-great-grandfather, Adam Klaassen, immigrated to the U.S.A. from Germany in the early 1800s, he changed the spelling of the family name to Clauson. It's pronounced klah-son, the same as it was in the original German. I've heard it prounounced (and seen it spelled) a gazillion differnt ways.