Just as the Whitbread conglomerate pulls out of the annual Whitbread awards — apparently they don’t fit the current business model — announcements are made regarding this year’s winners. The British do love their book awards, and they love to draw out the process. You have your long lists, your short lists, your winners, and then your uber-winners. Ali Smith, winner of the Best Novel title, is now up against a slate of other bests to see who gets the big money.
Also honor and bragging rights.
This leads us to wonder, as is our nature, about the pronunciation of the award (would that we hang with literary types who know this stuff). Our inclination is to use phonetics; our knowledge of the illogical twists and turns of the English language (as modified by the British) makes us think “white bread”. Like Wonder, only not.
