Re: Correct plant names

**"Christopher P. Lindsey" t*@spamfodder.com**

> Has anyone else noticed that British and Americans pronunciation of
> scientific names is not the same? I was reading through a pronuncation
> guide and got myself in a dither finding that I had been pronouncing
> every single plant incorrectly until I got to "clematis." This I knew I
> had previously looked up. I checked to see where the book was published
> and it was English. 

Hi Fran,

   Definitely.  There are basically two camps regarding botanical
   pronunciation.  Most of the English-speaking world uses the
   'Traditional English System', whereas European botanists tend to
   prefer the 'Reformed Academic Latin' method.

   I'm going to paraphrase out of Walters & Keil [1] here and steal
   their example.

   The Traditional English System is much looser and words are pronounced
   as if they were written in English.  The Reformed Academic Latin
   method uses strict rules to govern the pronunciation of combinations
   of letters and is closer to Roman Latin.

   The family name Rosaceae would be pronounced Ro-z'ay-see-ee by
   English-speaking taxonomists and Ro-sa'h-seh-ah by continental
   botanists.

   That's why I always take pronunciation guides with a grain of salt;
   they're usually wrong or just one of many ways to pronounce a name.

   Here's another example:

      http://members.aol.com/magarland/botlat/testhand.htm

Chris

[1] Walters, Dirk R. and David J. Keil.  Vascular Plant Taxonomy, Third 
    Edition.

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