Pronunciation of Latin names, or of anything....

Sharon, the herb and Harley Davidson lady, wrote charmingly, on April 9th,
as follows:

"Does it REALLY matter a flat patooty how you pronounce the words
in question???

"I know from living all over the world that some folks pronounce things
"locally", and some have "accents", and some are being "hoity-toity", and
some of us JUST DON'T CARE.  I guess if we were linguists, it would matter.
But not being one, and not being so upstanding that I can't overlook someone
saying something another way, I guess I have to say:

"Hey, say it how ya think.  Must be a thang (that is an east Texas "thing")
Keep up the information, no matter how ya pronounce it.  :+}"

Sharon:

I think you write very amusingly, and I think you speak for a great
many people who truly don't care how they pronounce words.

But I really can't let your QUESTION go unanswered.  You asked
"Does it REALLY matter a flat patooty how you pronounce the words?"

Yes, Sharon it does.  

When we consider pronunciation, we're talking about *conversation*.

Pronunciation is to conversation what spelling is to writing.  If
you want people to understand you, you must ALWAYS follow two basic
rules:

(1) you must pronounce each word well enough for people to understand
what the word is you're trying to say.  Otherwise they simply don't
know what you're talking about.

(2) your pronunciation ought not to be distracting.  This second principle
is just as important to communication as is the first one.  Ideally your
pronunciation should be such that the idea represented by EACH word is
absorbed instantly by your audience, with their attention going smoothly
on to the next word and the next, so that they hear everything you say, 
understand it correctly, and don't have their train of thought interrupted
by a pronunciation to which they're not accustomed.

Please bear with me through a couple of examples.

Let's suppose you're giving a talk on iris to an audience in Boston.
You start off, "I'm talking today about iris."

Good, everybody follows you, ready for the next sentence.  You're
getting paid for this lecture, and if you're good, you'll be asked
back again.  Actually, you *were* good, and you did get asked back
again.  The next time, you began:

"Thanks for asking me back.  This time, I'm going to talk about
Eyetalian iris."

H-m-m-m.  Not to worry.  Half the audience didn't even notice it; the
other half spent a few moments to a few minutes pondering your origins.
Maybe pronunciation doesn't matter.  Anyhow, you've been asked to give
your basic "iris" talk somewhere else.  Having meanwhile read somewhere
that the French pronounce it "E-ris" (as in E-mail), you begin:

"Today I'm going to talk about E-ris.  E-rises are among the easiest
plants to grow.  My grandmother introduced me to E-ris when I was a
small child."  And on and on, for a half hour, E-ris this and E-ris
that.  

Sharon said "I can overlook someone saying something another way."
Can you, Sharon?  Didn't you mean you can FORGIVE them?  Yes, you
can forgive them, but you *can't* overlook it.  During the whole
talk (a real one that I once heard in Madison), every time she said
"E-ris" I cringed, but also, each time, I swore to myself that
I would overlook it the next time.  But EVERY time she said it, it
grated on my ear, and I became very angry at myself for not being
to ignore it.  Perhaps a large percentage of her audience WERE
paragons, and didn't even notice it, but for a few, the lecture
was ruined.  And what a pity, because it would have been so easy
for her to learn the "correct" pronunciation for her American
audience.

What harm is done?  If "E-ris" is the only word you mispronounce,
people will eventually get used to it, and stop being distracted.  But
mispronounce a different word in every sentence, and nobody will be
able to follow your talk.  And, believe me, you won't be asked back,
unless, conceivably, you have such unique and valuable information that
they'll want you *in spite of* your distracting pronunciations.

But have you ever noticed that people who mispronounce words a lot
generally don't have vast stores of valuable information?

If you're asked to give your talk to a small-town audience in Texas,
maybe you ought to say "Today, I'm talking about orris."  If your
audience pronounces it that way, they'll understand you; they won't be
distracted.  It's always a good idea, when you know a word is often
pronounced in different ways, to find out what the local pronunciation
is, and to speak accordingly.  Incidentally, the word "orris root" does,
as Diana Whitehead posted recently, refer to the particular iris from
which the best orris root is made, but it is spelled that way only
because the people who developed and popularized orris root gave that
pronunciation to ALL iris.  Spelling *followed* the pronunciation in that
case.

Pronunciation matters in private conversation, too.  Steve Marak
wrote the other day:

"I have noticed, when I've been lucky enough to be around these people,
that they seem to all invariably follow Tom's policy of not correcting
anyone's pronunciation of botanical names - I don't know if they are
just all very diplomatic people, or afraid of starting a discussion
like this. However, they will not go so far as to mispronounce a name
themselves just to make one feel at ease!"

Are you sure about that, Steve?  If I say to someone, "The for-sithy-uhs
are blooming late this year," and and pretty soon I hear them replying, 
"Yes, I've never known the for-scythe-ee-uhs to be this late," I switch
immediately to THEIR pronunciation.  As Sharon says, "It doesn't matter
a flat patooty."  This person and I are communicating, and the only way
to keep it friendly is to "overlook" the other pronunication.  If I
keep on "correcting" my friend, she will become my opponent. 

If she had STARTED with her own pronunciation, and it differed from mine,
believe me, she'd never hear mine.  What is the point in having a
pronunciation contest when you're trying to exchange other information?
I'm sure you're with me on this, Sharon.  But, I follow HER pronuncia-
tion instead of my own not because (as you said) "pronunciation doesn't
matter," but because I believe it DOES.  If you pronounce words the way
your audience does, you get communication.  Clash with them, and you
get (1) irritation, (2) distraction, and (3) not asked back.

Don't get me wrong.  There are exceptions to everything.  If you're 
trying to teach your children, of course you're going to correct them.
And if you MUST teach everybody, then go ahead, but you'll lose me.  I'm
with Sharon on that.  I'm not out to teach everybody the correct
way to pronounce Latin.  Only children.  And the few who ask what
I think is correct.

In the locker room the other day, this Frenchman, from 
Marseilles, asked me if I had seen the comet.  I replied that I
had.  "I couldn't find eet," he responded.  "It's very close to the
Big Dipper," I answered.  "Ze beeg dee-pear?" he asked, "What ees
zat?"  I thought a bit, and went "It's one of the constellations."
"Ah, yes," he said, "ze constellations!  We call it ze Fear Mama."

Now it was my turn to be puzzled.  "The Fear Mama?"  "Yais," he
replied, smiling with satisfaction, "Ze Fear Mama."  I muttered,
"The Fear Mama....  H-m-m-m."   A friend, eavesdropping, said "What
the hell is a Fear Mama?"   "It's evidently the French word for the
Big Dipper," I replied. 

I tried another tack.  "What do you call the Great Bear?"  "Ah,
yais, ze Great Bear.  We call eet "Lure" or "Le grand chariot," 
he said.

I added, wryly, "And you also call it the "Fear Mama."  "Ah, non,"
he replied, "Ze Fear Mama is ALL ze constellations, all of zem,
ze entire sky."

The light dawned.  "Oh, the firmament," I replied.  "Yes,
eggs-act-lee," he answered, "ze Fear Mama."  This time I detected
a soupcon of an "en" sound at the end of "Mama."  And I realized
he had unfailingly accented the last syllable of "mama."  I
suppressed a terrific urge to say "Why didn't you say so?"

So pronunication does matter, if you want to communicate.  And,
don't forget, the only CORRECT WAY to correct Latin is not
to correct others!  I hope I've now taught everybody the correct
way to pronounce Latin.






Harry Dewey, listowner, Alpine-L, the Electronic Rock Garden Society
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