Staying out of this thread probably won't help it go away, so... John Cowan <cowan at ccil dot org> wrote:
> The derived adjective "quixotic", however, is pronounced in native > fashion [kwIksOtIk]. This seems fair. Even if there is a Spanish adjective "quixÃtico" -- I found only one Google hit for it in Spanish, but many in Portuguese -- it is not clear whether the English "quixotic" is derived from it or whether the two developed independently. Merriam-Webster Online seems to think it came directly from "Quixote." In any case, the change in ending from "-ico" to "-ic" appears to justify anglicizing the pronunciation of the whole word. Pet peeve: hearing "Quixote" pronounced [kiho'ti], and similarly in other Spanish words (e.g. "tamale", "guacamole"), where the English pronunciation of terminal 'e' as [i] overrides the otherwise Spanish pronunciation. -Doug Ewell Fullerton, California http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/
