Let’s hope that the cover illustration on...

Let’s hope that the cover illustration on the latest issue of Headway, the RTD’s magazine, isn’t a commentary on the agency’s effectiveness.

The upper portion shows a group of people waiting at a bus stop while two buses across the street are zooming by in the opposite direction.

The bottom portion shows a half-dozen “RTD Staff” people, some of them wearing shorts, milling about near a Metro Rail train. In the vehicle’s destination window are the words:

NOT IN SERVICE.

Would Tolstoy mispronounce Moscow? Would Victor Hugo bungle Paris? How then to explain Raymond Chandler--the novelist who is said to have defined L.A.--uttering Los Anj-e-LEES --on a KCET program the other night?

Perhaps it was only the mistake of actor Robert Stephens, who portrayed Chandler. Then, again, the correct pronunciation of L.A. has been debated for decades.

The Chamber of Commerce issued this ditty, directed at newcomers and visitors in the late 1800s: “The Lady would remind you, please / Her name is not Lost Angie Lees.

In the early 1900s, The Times included a daily reminder on its editorial page to use the traditional Spanish version-- loce AHNG-hayl-ais. The Times’ guide didn’t stop President Theodore Roosevelt from saying loss AN-gee-lees on one visit. Mayor Sam Yorty later offered a different variation-- loss ANG-uh-lus.

Fortunately, we’ll always have El Lay.

List of the Day:

Folks in the Orange County community of El Toro will vote soon on whether they want to incorporate and, if so, whether they should retain that name or find a new one. Certainly, a city by the name of The Bull would be a real attention-getter--especially when Johnny Carson hears about it. But L.A. County shouldn’t feel jealous. It has a few names of its own that yield unusual translations, such as:

1--Pumpkins (Calabasas).

2--Skunk Hill (Azusa).

3--The Second (El Segundo).

4--Mouth (Saugus).

5--Executioner (Verdugo) Hills.

6--Palmdale (Valley of Palms--which we include because its founders are said to have mistaken Joshua trees for palms).

And, of course, Restaurant Row on Swamp or Marsh (La Cienega) Boulevard is still a prime attraction here in Lost Angie Lees.

Some of the passengers on a United Airlines jet out of Burbank were a bit taken aback the other night when they heard the pilot introduce himself over the P.A. system as: “Capt. Bligh.”

Fortunately, the co-pilot wasn’t Mr. Christian.

miscelLAny:

Urban sprawl must really be getting out of control: Until its recent sale, a nightclub by the name of West L.A. was one of the hottest spots in . . . Scottsdale, Ariz.