"Sacha" wrote in message
.uk...
On 13/1/06 11:46, in article ,
"PammyT" wrote:


"stevej" wrote in message
...

The url Des gave contained the correct spelling, Sisyrinchium.

Yes, thanks I have found some information now with this spelling. They
like
well-drained and my soil is somewhat clayey so it's digging sand in for
me
at weekend




so to pronunciation. Would it be 'sissy rink ee um'? with the emphasis on
the second word?


More sizzy, IME but otherwise, yes.


You are right to qualify with IME as most latin pronunciations seem to be
learned and are specific to different countries, regions, language groups
and even religion of the speaker. Most of my plant pronunciations, I copied
from other botanists and turn out to be pretty arbitrarily different from
how the Romans would have said it. The religion reference was from a
supervisior in university who chuckled at how I pronounced Occellus and said
I was using catholic pronunciation (I learned latin from teh Christian
Brothers in Dublin).

Anyway, I would have said sissy rather than sizzy but realise I have no
grounds for this preference other that what I guessed the pronunciation to
be when I saw the name first and that is probably wrong anyway :-)


--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove the weeds to email me)