Pronounced How?

It's a longstanding debate, but how do you pronounce the name of the Epiphone Musical Instruments company? Most people I know say "Epi-fohn" to rhyme with "telephone", which makes a certain kind of sense. But I have always seen it as a pun on the word "Epiphany", meaning

A revelatory manifestation of a divine being, or a sudden manifestation of the essence or meaning of something.

It's also some kind of feast.

So how do you find out. Some suggest, you phone the company, and the way they answer the phone is the way it is pronounced, but that isn't necessarily true. We had someone reading our telephone menu messages who (in my opinion) put totally the wrong inflection on the company name. But hey.

There's also the Shrewsbury issue, which my good friend Si researched some time ago. Half the people who live in Shrewsbury pronounce it "Shroo-sberry" and half pronounce it, correctly, as "Shroh-sberry" - it's something to do with Old English and what a Shrew or Shrow was, apparently.

So people who live/work there do not necessarily know.

As far as Epiphone goes, I always think the Epi-fohn pronunciation is indicative of the typical guitarist's world view: literal, face-value, un-figurative. And of course my "Epiphany" pronunciation is indicative of my hoity toity namby pamby poetic and slightly paranoid view of the world.

But think of this. The word "Epiphany" comes from the Greek epiphaneia (manifestation) or epiphainesthai, to appear. And the Epiphone Musical Instrument Company, as it happens, was founded by one Epimanondas Stathopoulo, whose surname is the Ellis Island version of Stathopoulos (yes, Mr Yankee Immigration Functionary, removing that "s" from the end of the name made it so much more American and intelligible).

So, a Greek company, founded by a guy whose name was shortened to Epi, whose company name Epiphone could conceivably be pronounced to rhyme with the Greek-origin word Epiphany... what price now that my pronunciation is correct, and the rest of you are ignorant redneck shitkicking hicks? Huh?

This public service announcement brought to you by the Oil Of Shrewsbury.