Protest

It’s well-known that animal rights activists often protest against fur. You know, by showing nude models saying that they’ll rather go naked than wear fur, and by more mainstream means. It’s justified, but it’s strange to protest so loudly against something that is actually used by few people because of its price, and not to protest much against leather, which nearly everyone puts on their feet. Do they protest against people who make animals suffer or against bourgeois hedonism?

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Componenta

Israeli programmers use many words of English origin when they speak Hebrew. (Many of them prefer to write only in English instead of Hebrew, which is a separate issue.)

When they use these English words, they tend to adapt them to Hebrew pronunciation. Some adaptations are simple, for example “router” is pronounced with an Israeli, rather than English [r] sound (some people – not necessarily purists! – use the Hebrew word נַתָּב [natav] for that). “SQL” is rarely pronounced as “sequel” – usually it’s “ess cue el”, and the same goes for MySQL.

But some are harder to explain. For example, “component” is often pronounced [kompoˈnenta]. I heard it in several companies and i don’t quite understand why. Note the [a] in the end and the stress, too: in English it’s supposed to be something in the area of [kʌmˈpoʊnənt] – on the second syllable, not the third. I have never heard an Israeli programmer pronounce it with correct stress when speaking in English – i always hear it as [ˈkomponənt] – with stress on the first syllable and with a [o]’s in the first two syllables.

The only languages available on Google Translate in which this word is anywhere near [komponénta] are Serbian (компонента), German (Komponente), Romanian (componentă) and Spanish and Italian (componente). It may have something to do with them, but the solution is probably more complicated. Does anyone have any idea?