It has taken David Bowie's death for many of his fans to learn to pronounce his surname, which rhymes with Joey or Chloe - not wow-wee. Back when he changed his name, according to The Sun, the man christened David Jones said he chose Bowie for the American Bowie knife because "it cuts both ways". But the name of the Bowie knife (and the surname of Jim Bowie, Texan revolutionary of Scottish origin after whom the blade was named) rhymes with Louis, gooey and fluey - not Joey or even wow-wee. So you could say it cuts three ways.story_article_left1I'm not sure how Jim reacted when people got his name wrong, but David was reportedly always gracious. It is probably easier to be forgiving when you speak Martian and are married to Iman, or when you are a famous Georgian football player (Rati Tsinamdzghvrishvili is just as laid-back, apparently) but things are different when you are plain old Bhekizifundiswa Soap, without the compensations of fame and fortune to make up for the pain caused by people who can't be bothered to learn how to say your name.I do think it important to pronounce people's names properly. It shows respect. But it is not surprising that English speakers find this difficult, given that we can't even agree on how to pronounce words in our own language.English is a product of many nationalities. It has more in common with Fanagalo or Esperanto than it does with, say, French, which has rules. In France, according to My Fair Lady's Henry Higgins, they don't care what they say as long as they pronounce it correctly. In English, if you ask me, it shouldn't matter how words are pronounced as long as their meaning is clearly understood.Plenty of people feel differently, of course. In The Language Wars, Henry Hitchings (no relation to Higgins), writes of how the innocuous letter "h" caused something like a civil war among English speakers who couldn't keep a civil tongue in their heads. ("Civil" being one of those dastardly words with one pronunciation and many meanings.) Of the "h" bomb, Hitchings wrote: "If you got it right you were not guaranteed acceptance, but if you got it wrong you could count on being a pariah."Hitchings points out the illogicality of insisting on "proper" English pronunciation. Referring to a book entitled 100 Words Almost Everyone Mispronounces, he writes: "If 'almost everyone' mispronounces them, it follows that almost no one pronounces them 'correctly', so perhaps the supposedly correct pronunciations are close to becoming obsolete."But let's rather talk about the weather. I have noticed a marked increase in social media posts about rain, sun and gentle breezes. Some say this is because of extreme conditions. I think it's because weather is a safe topic."If you cannot think of anything appropriate to say, you will please restrict your remarks to the weather," said Mrs Dashwood in Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. Even in 1811, people understood the incendiary nature of words and the divisive potential of almost any subject.story_article_right2At least you can't get into trouble for talking about the weather - unless you are BBC weather forecaster Michael Fish, who found himself in hot water in 1987 after telling viewers not to worry because there was no hurricane on the way. A few hours later, England was hit by its worst storm since 1703.The shock waves of the 1703 storm can still be felt in language today. Weather became a prominent element of literary and theatrical works, including a 1704 play by John Dennis, who invented a new way to make the sound of thunder offstage (something to do with rolling metal balls around in a bowl).No one remembers the name of his play, but they do remember the playwright's angry rant after his play flopped but his ball-rolling Foley device was adopted by other producers: "Damn them! They will not let my play run, but they steal my thunder."Today I shall let Mark Twain steal my thunder. "Everybody talks about the weather," he said, "but nobody does anything about it."E-mail your observations on words and language to Sue de Groot at degroots@sundaytimes.co.za or follow her on Twitter @deGrootS1...