Re: pronunciation
- Subject: Re: pronunciation
- From: J* S* <g*@yahoo.com>
- Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2004 18:14:15 -0700 (PDT)
In biological Latin, the digraphs ae and oe are
treated as the letter e. (Does anyone remember when
typesetters set these digraphs as ONE letter, joined?)
For instance (especially in old spellings):
... aesthetic, aestivate, aestuary (pronounced as
short English e as in met).
... anaemia, larvae (pronounced as long English e as
in me, we)
... oesophagus, oestrogen (short e sound)
... foetus, amoeba (long e sound)
Note the ae ending in animal and plant family names:
Rosaceae, the rose family, is pronounced "rosacee-ee",
not "rosacee-ay".
Similarly, Canidae, Camelidae, Salmonidae, etc.
But do note that nowadays, digraphs such as ae and oe
are often written simply as e: anemia, fetus, ameba,
estrogen.
Joe
> > --- Ccopuntia@aol.com wrote:
> >
> > > Could someone please verify how to pronounce
> > > "stoechas"? I've always said,
> > > "Stow-cuss", but a friend says, "Steek-iss".
> > >
> > > Anybody know for sure so we can settle our
> > friendly
> > > wager??? Many thanks!
> > >
> > > C. Carter
=====
Joe Seals
Santa Maria, California --
where the weather is always perfect
and my NEW garden will soon be blooming and full of birds and butterflies
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