Watched Titchmarsh who talked about Gunnera manicata and pronounced it
kate-a. Thought it was cart-a?
Saw Carol Klein getting rid of an Alkanet before it seeded and could swear
she was removing a Borage. I know they are related but do people call borage
alkanet?

"Rupert (W.Yorkshire)" wrote in message
...
Watched Titchmarsh who talked about Gunnera manicata and pronounced it
kate-a. Thought it was cart-a?
Saw Carol Klein getting rid of an Alkanet before it seeded and could swear
she was removing a Borage. I know they are related but do people call
borage
alkanet?

I think it would depend on how you pronounce other words I would say cart-a
but then I say war-ter rather than watt-er I am always a bit doubtful when
someone confidently says it should be pronounced such and such, I believe
the original international agreement (back in the 1700's) was that Latin
would be used and it would be pronounced as per local language
pronunciations and not as a Roman would have said it. Only rarely does
someone say the plant name in such a way I can't work out what they mean
(usually because they have only seen it written and never heard it said) so
the system works quite well without being too pedantic.

--
Charlie, gardening in Cornwall.
http://www.roselandhouse.co.uk
Holders of National Plant Collection of Clematis viticella (cvs)

"Rupert (W.Yorkshire)" wrote in message
...
Watched Titchmarsh who talked about Gunnera manicata
and pronounced it kate-a. Thought it was cart-a?


Nope, apparently the second vowel is long
"ay" rather than "ar"

as in

Maculata = "mac-you-LAY-ta"
Brachialis = "bray-kee-AY-lis"
Umbellata = "um-bell-LAY-ta"

http://www.saltspring.com/capewest/pron.htm

(Canada)


There can be controversy because botanical Latin is Anglicised
and so can depart fron classical Latin Pronounciation. The same
goes for some words with Latin roots and ISTR Enoch Powell
a classicist insisted on using idiosynchratic classical
pronunciations for some words, maybe Quintin Hog too

There are some other plant names on here, but its not exhaustive.

http://www.taunton.com/finegardening/pages/spg017.asp#M


michael adams


....







Saw Carol Klein getting rid of an Alkanet before it seeded and could swear
she was removing a Borage. I know they are related but do people call
borage
alkanet?

On Sat, 3 Jun 2006 07:36:57 +0100, Charlie Pridham wrote
(in article ):


"Rupert (W.Yorkshire)" wrote in message
...
Watched Titchmarsh who talked about Gunnera manicata and pronounced it
kate-a. Thought it was cart-a?
Saw Carol Klein getting rid of an Alkanet before it seeded and could swear
she was removing a Borage. I know they are related but do people call
borage
alkanet?

I think it would depend on how you pronounce other words I would say cart-a
but then I say war-ter rather than watt-er I am always a bit doubtful when
someone confidently says it should be pronounced such and such, I believe
the original international agreement (back in the 1700's) was that Latin
would be used and it would be pronounced as per local language
pronunciations and not as a Roman would have said it. Only rarely does
someone say the plant name in such a way I can't work out what they mean
(usually because they have only seen it written and never heard it said) so
the system works quite well without being too pedantic.



I sometimes wonder how many people pronounce 'Pinus' correctly........ ;-)

--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
email address on web site

In article ,
"michael adams" writes:
| "Rupert (W.Yorkshire)" wrote in message
| ...
|
| Watched Titchmarsh who talked about Gunnera manicata
| and pronounced it kate-a. Thought it was cart-a?
|
| Nope, apparently the second vowel is long
| "ay" rather than "ar"

It varies with where and how you were taught Latin - some dogmatists
get uptight, but most people adapt to either - which can be pronounced
either eyether or eehther :-)

As I posted, it is possible that there is a canonical pronounciation
of botanical Latin - there certainly is one of English legal Latin,
and another of ecclesiatical Latin, though that almost certainly varies
with the church. It is also quite possible that Oxbridge formal Latin
varies from both ....

| There can be controversy because botanical Latin is Anglicised
| and so can depart fron classical Latin Pronounciation. ...

As nobody got around to tape recording that at the time, nobody living
today knows how that was pronounced. As I posted, we DO know which
vowels were long and which short (from poetry), but we don't know if
long A was pronounced as in Kate or cart - or even Kurt or kite, though
there are some educated guesses (and a lot of dogmatic claims).


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

Sacha wrote:

I sometimes wonder how many people pronounce 'Pinus' correctly........ ;-)

Really Sacha! I never thought that you of all people would slip that
one in Must be the hot weather. Good taste requires that it is Pie
- nus, but I tend to suspect that an Italian might differ though
possibly with a harder 'n' - as in 'Pin-nus'. Since latin is the root
of the modern Italian language, the it seems logical that pronunciation
of latin words should more or less follow the rules for pronouncing
Italian, but without the lilt... theoretically.

That said, plant names are anglicised, germanised, chopped up with
Greek, Sanskrit and generally the result of a pudding-basin full of
different languages from which the Victoria sponge of the modern plant
name springs. Good God this sunshine's getting to me - must take more
alcohol in the shade! Personally, I tend to use shorter vowels
towards the front, slightly longer ones in the middle and shorter ones
again at the end. So for me, manicata is man-ni-cah-ta. Trouble is
when I think about it too long, those a's can take on a decidedly Ozzie
sound.

Back to the shade.

"Nick Maclaren" wrote in message
...

As nobody got around to tape recording that at the time, nobody living
today knows how that was pronounced. As I posted, we DO know which
vowels were long and which short (from poetry), but we don't know if
long A was pronounced as in Kate or cart - or even Kurt or kite,

Er...

If the long A formed the last syllable of a rhyming couplet
in which the last word of the other line was "cart" or "dart",
then it would be reasonable to suppose it too was pronounced
"ah".

If on the other hand the long A formed the last syllable of a rhyming
couplet in which the last word of the other line was "bite" or "sight",
then it would be reasonable to suppose it too was pronounced
"aye".

If on the other hand the long A formed the last syllable of a rhyming
couplet in which the last word of the other line was "gate" or "bait",
then it would be reasonable to suppose it tooo was pronounced
"ay".

Would it not?


....

though
there are some educated guesses (and a lot of dogmatic claims).


....


Presumably all such pronounciations can be deduced, by cross
referencing the endings of rhyming couplets.

Given that both rhyme and metre were especialy important
in oral cultures, as aids to memorisation.



michael adams

....



Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

On Sat, 3 Jun 2006 13:05:55 +0100, DavePoole Torquay wrote
(in article . com):

Sacha wrote:

I sometimes wonder how many people pronounce 'Pinus' correctly........ ;-)

Really Sacha! I never thought that you of all people would slip that
one in Must be the hot weather. snip

The devil made me do it. ;-)

--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
email address on web site

In article ,
"michael adams" writes:
|
| If the long A formed the last syllable of a rhyming couplet
| in which the last word of the other line was "cart" or "dart",
| then it would be reasonable to suppose it too was pronounced
| "ah".
|
| If on the other hand the long A formed the last syllable of a rhyming
| couplet in which the last word of the other line was "bite" or "sight",
| then it would be reasonable to suppose it too was pronounced
| "aye".
|
| If on the other hand the long A formed the last syllable of a rhyming
| couplet in which the last word of the other line was "gate" or "bait",
| then it would be reasonable to suppose it tooo was pronounced
| "ay".
|
| Would it not?

It would, if your assumptions were true, but they aren't.

Firstly, Latin did not go in for lengthening vowels in that way,
secondly, classical Latin verse was rhythm-based and not rhyme-based
and, thirdly, that would help only if we know how the 'complex'
vowels were pronounced.

| though
| there are some educated guesses (and a lot of dogmatic claims).
|
| Presumably all such pronounciations can be deduced, by cross
| referencing the endings of rhyming couplets.

I am amused by your presumption :-)

| Given that both rhyme and metre were especialy important
| in oral cultures, as aids to memorisation.

Even if that were true, which it isn't, classical Latin did not come
from an oral culture.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

michael adams writes

"Nick Maclaren" wrote in message
...

As nobody got around to tape recording that at the time, nobody living
today knows how that was pronounced. As I posted, we DO know which
vowels were long and which short (from poetry), but we don't know if
long A was pronounced as in Kate or cart - or even Kurt or kite,

Er...

If the long A formed the last syllable of a rhyming couplet
in which the last word of the other line was "cart" or "dart",
then it would be reasonable to suppose it too was pronounced
"ah".

If on the other hand the long A formed the last syllable of a rhyming
couplet in which the last word of the other line was "bite" or "sight",
then it would be reasonable to suppose it too was pronounced
"aye".

If on the other hand the long A formed the last syllable of a rhyming
couplet in which the last word of the other line was "gate" or "bait",
then it would be reasonable to suppose it tooo was pronounced
"ay".

Would it not?


...

though
there are some educated guesses (and a lot of dogmatic claims).


...


Presumably all such pronounciations can be deduced, by cross
referencing the endings of rhyming couplets.

Given that both rhyme and metre were especialy important
in oral cultures, as aids to memorisation.


And also - languages apparently mutate in a fairly consistent pattern
(ie the sounds drift in the same direction, rather than an 'a' drifting
one way and an 'e' in another) ... and so, it is possible to work
backwards ad deduce what the older language sounded like. Apparently.

--
Kay

Is Kate-a an Americanism? Sounds a bit that way.

Slightly off topic, sorry for that, but the one pronunciation that catches a nerve with me is couch grass. Why do some people pronounce it as coo-ch, surely it has to be cow-ch.
Would you ask someone to sit down on the coo-ch?

In article ,
K writes:
|
| And also - languages apparently mutate in a fairly consistent pattern
| (ie the sounds drift in the same direction, rather than an 'a' drifting
| one way and an 'e' in another) ... and so, it is possible to work
| backwards ad deduce what the older language sounded like. Apparently.

To a limited extent. As with most such extrapolations, the reliability
goes rapidly down as the distance increases. Remember that there are
phonetic measurements for only a century back; the analyses of
separated communities have to assume that they have not changed (and
why shouldn't they have?) and go back a few centuries only. Latin
hasn't been spoken as a mother tongue for 1500 years, and classical
Latin was 500 years before that ....


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

Dave Roberts wrote in
news Why do some people pronounce it
as coo-ch, surely it has to be cow-ch.
Would you ask someone to sit down on the coo-ch?

I think consistency is a wonderful idea, but meanwhile
we're stuck with English.

How do you pronounce "bow" and "row" and "bough"...
.... in the context of boats, ribbons, arguments, and
trees?


--

I picked this up in 1990; it was old then.

Multi-national personnel at North Atlantic Treaty Organization
headquarters near Paris found English to be an easy language ...
until they tried to pronounce it. To help them discard an
array of accents, the verses below were devised. After
trying them, a Frenchman said he'd prefer six months at hard
labor to reading six lines aloud. Try them yourself.

ENGLISH IS TOUGH STUFF
======================

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.


Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!


-- Author Unknown

In article ,
Janet Baraclough writes:
| The message
| from Dave Roberts contains
| these words:
|
| Slightly off topic, sorry for that, but the one pronunciation that
| catches a nerve with me is couch grass. Why do some people pronounce it
| as coo-ch, surely it has to be cow-ch.
| Would you ask someone to sit down on the coo-ch?
|
| Your nerve must be out of touch.

Nah. He's just overheated, and needs to jump in the louch[*].

[*] A variant spelling of loch.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

"Rupert (W.Yorkshire)" wrote ...
Watched Titchmarsh who talked about Gunnera manicata and pronounced it
kate-a. Thought it was cart-a?

Others that I've heard pronounced several different ways: weigela;
clematis; dahlia.
I say "vy-gee-la" "clem-A-tis" "dAA-lia".

Any others?