Ahime!

No, I haven't forgotten how to spell my own name. "Ahime!" is an Italian exclamation--it roughly works out to somewhere between "Ay carumba" and "Woe is me!"

In this particular case, I'm grumbling because never before has the invention of a "Diction Stick"--with optional bayonet attachment [TM]--seemed so useful.

The chorus in which I'm singing is working on Monteverdi's Lagrime d'amante. One of the words that keeps coming up in the text is "quel," meaning "that" or "which." Now in Italian, the pronunciation of quel should be [kwel]. A lot of people, however, are trying to sing [kel], which is the correct way to sing it--in French. Last year, when we tried to sing Martin's Ode à la musique--in French--people kept trying to sing [kel] as [kwel]. I can't win.