Re: New to me plant - silene procumbens

In a message dated 5/30/02 9:26:58 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
garrideb@well.com writes:

<< Here you come up on a hard rock re Latin pronunciation. All vowels are
 prounounced individually (unless they're dipthongs...); they and their
 associated consonant(s) form seperate syllables. The question of whether
 they're long or short is a harder rock. The phonetic pronunciation you give
 above seems unlikely to me, as it indicates both the 'e' are long.
 I'd guess  something like Sigh-li-neigh ot Sigh-lee-nuh . But the final
 word rests with Stern in his Botanical Latin... >>

Stearn (Stern) says, as a matter of fact, Sile' ne.  Nobody in the US says it 
that way.  There is endless discussion on pronounciation and many of us have 
had different forms of instruction.  Coombs says sigh-lay-nee.  I would not 
have mentioned this had I recalled the Latinate form forum would again rise 
up.  Sorry to all.

There is an excellent article in the NEHS bulletin this month authored by 
George Schmid on pronounciation. Schmid is a German writing in English and 
respected for his huge monograph on Hosta.  Here is what he has to say:

"The use of scientific names is governed by certain rules, but the 
pronounciation of them has no given rules. The only "rules" that might be 
applied are grounded in classical Latin. Most gardeners treat the 
pronounciation as if they are in their own language.  For this reason there 
are several ways to pronounce a scientific 
name.....................................................As Professor Stearn 
puts it "how they are pronounced matters little provided they are understood".

This goes on with the most practical discussion I have read. The word Silene 
is generally a three syllable word and the way you say it matters only 
insofar as your listener understands you.   I hope no gardeners are put off 
by this endless who is right and who is not right thing and go on to learn 
the botanic names as they are a great help for the gardener.  When they cease 
to be a help and begin to be an argument, many gardeners will think the 
learning of  botanic nomenclature a great burden and shrug it off.

I brought it up as when heard in some meeting, you will hear a word you would 
think you did not know.  It is possible NEHS will post the entire article as 
it does a very good job of removing nitpicking non-rules.

Claire Peplowski
NYS z4

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