LauraBC,

During the course of business, I was once approached by a trucker from Newfoundland. As he began to speak, I realised I couldn't make out most of what he'd said. I asked him to please repeat himself and hopefully I could sort through his strong dialect. No such luck.
I didn't want to anger the trucker by asking again, so I called over a fellow co-worker from Nova Scotia to help me out.
3,000 miles apart, same basic English language, but I was stumped.

Cheers, Barrie.

BAY'zil is perfectly correct, and, I believe, far more common in America than the equally acceptble BAH'zil...oh, forsooth! Are you two saying baySil? No pesto for either of you.

I persistently say pee OH nee. I try not to ever mention them, anywhere.
Anemone comes out wrong, too.

Here's another: in NY, I'd only hear SPEAR-ee-uh. Only since moving to the PNW have I discovered that it's spi-REE-uh. Must have been unable to hear it properly over all those rahd-ee-a-ters.

mkirkwag, I sit here saying BAYsil baySIL BAYsil baySIL, trying to figure out what the heck I say, which reminds me that I want to grow bay leaves this year. And I think I say BAYsil, yeah, sounds right. And I realized this week that a Heuchera doesn't have a ch sound but a c sound. Methinks I will take some Latin lessons!

Oh, I just can't get away from saying "cleh-MAH-tiss" the way it was said on the farm in Ohio when I was growing up .

LOL... mmm, yep... Chaparral born'n'bred, way too many Suhth'n fren's, a couple of the most darling old Svedish Aunties (who can draw four syllables out of any two with that lovely upward lilt), then a stint in Jollye Ol' England (where I felt like a 5-year old and a slightly backward one at that-- they all watch American TV so they understood ME just fine but I couldn't get two words in ten of what THEY said, had to get the store managers to translate that whole first summer) ...and now my own lingo's a total hybridized mess!

Aluminum/aluminium
Baysil/bahsil
ClemATis/CLEMahtis
DeeOhDar/DAYadar
'erbs/hhherbs
Lumber/timber
...etc eksetra ad absurdum (or is that absurdon?)

Delightful thread! Thanks folks!

(saving thread, bookmarking it to check back again...)

Nothing wrong with cle MAH tis. I even stumbled onto a clematis group (which of course I can't find now) that opened it's site by stating authoritatively that it was *the* correct pronounciation. American Heritage dictionary has a couple of pronounciations, Columbia encyclopedia has a couple more. Merriam-Webster likes clem' i tis and cle ma' tis...the root had a long e, and no one but Patrick bothers with *that*. :-D Clematis gets a free pass on phonic anarchy. so sayeth the me.

On the other hand, LauraBC, I'm sitting here with a spoonful of pesto, holding it out, snatching it back, holding it out, snatching it back...

i though it was just Sybil Fawlty who went around exclaiming "Basil! Basil! Basil!".

Barrie,
I like your Nova Scotia story. When I was a teenager I left my home in California for New York City and ended up working in a bagel shop in Penn Central Station. I'll never forget my first day when a customer asked for a beggawitbutta, and I just stared at him while all the other commuters behind him started yelling at me BEGGAWITBUTTA! HE WANTS ABEEGAWITBUTTA! Mortifying. Some kind, less-accented soul finally explained he wanted a bagel with butter.

I wonder who decides how latin is supposed to be pronounced? We have no record of how they spoke right? I have always been curious about this.

Since botanical Latin bears little resmblance to classical Latin, there are generally accepted conventions on pronunciation - emphasis is typically on the second syllable, 'ch' is pronounced as 'k', etc. And there is a great deal of Greek influence on botanical taxnonomy - not all of that tongue-tangling stuff IS Latin, i.e, hydrangea, helleborus.

Misslemonish...you DID??? This is *such* an instructive forum. Clearly you didn't stay long if you're calling it Penn Central...though I suppose your memory could be fading...it must have been many, many, many years ago, mustn't it?

When *I* arrived in NY (many, many, many years later), I arrived with a roommate, two taxis full of luggage and two cats who had flown with us from California. We had to sneak them into the hotel, which isn't easy to do when you have to pass through the lobby to get to your room, and they're in big carriers. Fortunately my roomate had big... ummm...she had the mammalian equivelent of sunflowers. Anyway, after all that business, we couldn't find the can opener to open the cat food, so we went to a local pizza parlor to try to score some pepperoni. "Pie or a slice?" Well, first of all, I'd never heard of selling pizza by the slice, so I had no context, and my gawd that accent! After the fourth time he repeated it, I looked helplessly at my roommate, who understood some high school Long Island. The entire transaction was held like that, with my own personal translator, like I was the California diplomat in the pizza U.N.

18 years later, I came back to the west coast with a beggawtibutta accent.

How *do* you say hellebores?

Oooh, you know what I got wrong for years was Dracena. I called it Dra KANE uh. And who could blame me? After all, someone to me that Dumb *CANE* was a dracena. :-P

I always say 'heel-a-boris' but I've heard it 'hell-a-boris'
???

I just went to check and the pronunciation I found was hel-eh-BORE-us, which to me sounds like hell-a-BORE-s. Kind of a you say potato I say potayto thing.

Helleborus is derived from the Greek words "elein" meaning to injure and "bora" meaning food. I am no expert on Greek pronunciation, but elein is pronounced like "elaine" and bora just as spelled. That would tend to indicate helleborus is pronounced as 'heel-a-bor-us' (long e) but the soft e ('hell') is just as acceptible and seems to be the most common usage.

As long as you are understood, I doubt perfect pronunciation is important although some mispronounced plant names could certainly generate a chuckle or two.

This isn't a pronunciation story but this thread reminded me of it: When I worked in a botanical greenhouse garden we grew lots of Streptocarpus. When asked and told the name, people invariably came up with the same line, which they always thought was funny: "Oh, like the sore throat!" After a few years of that I'm pretty sure my polite smile looked a little pasted on :)

I'm so glad people even try to use the botanical names but I know it can be like -- well, learning a foreign language :)

Here's a link that some may want to look at -- I only looked at a couple of names and they seemed correct but I can't vouch for the whole thing. However, it might help get you over any really bad stumbling!

Here is a link that might be useful: pronunciation guide

Different pronunciations are used on different sides of the Atlantic - some of them probably being more "propuh" than some of us in this subject - so you have to note where your pronunciation guide comes from. Otherwise you are going to get some smiles and blank stares here among us rubes. For example, one place I worked had some chuckling and commentary going on after a person left the sales office who had come in asking for "Pee-nus" nigra.

How about:

Calendula? Is it cal-EN-dul-a, or cal-en-DUL-a
Either way cracks me up.

Don't forget the houseplant, Clivia (here's a hint, named after Lady Clive). Sounds naughty if you get it wrong.

Wow, Carol Ann, nice link to have around. Thanks!

Lotsa comfort in that quote: "Botanical Latin is essentially a written language .... How they are pronounced really matters little provided they sound pleasant and are understood by all concerned..." - W.T. Stearn

Going one step further than the strictly botanical latin entries (of which there are >gasp2,754 garden terms compiled by gardeners and farmers from around the world [who've] shared their plant knowledge and expertise in 3,418 definitions, tips, and techniques.... and it's still growing!

On the other hand, there WAS supposed to have been a code of pronunciation drafted at one of the plant naming powwows some years back.

* plant naming powwows*

Who puts on these events anyhow? Is it the International Botanical Congress? I tried googling and couldn't figure it out. I know they actually happen & it must be interesting. What would it be like to suddenly decide a group of plants were in the wrong family? "Hey you there! Chrysanthemums! We're kicking you out of the the compositae family, you're going into foster care until we figure this out". And do you think the scientists get all hot & bothered talking about stamens & pistils & such all day?

Do you think in the evenings the HI IM's tags come off & the lady botanists put on thong bikinis and dance on top of cars? Do you think think the gentleman botanists drink copious amouts of beer and leer at the local flora?

Oh, well, um. Never mind. MissLemonV needs to get a life.

Peonies anyone? Or best dont go there:)?

in the 90's, i worked at a local nursery. the owner's wife did the bookkeeping/office management but really knew little about plants. it showed when she'd make requests for plants via their latin names.

the funniest mispronounciation has to be the day she called over the radios to staff [within earshot of all customers] to ask if we carried any gunnera. unfortunately, she pronounced it like the veneral disease. you should have seen our faces! finally, my boss responded that we didn't carry anything that required a shot of penicillin.

still cracks me up . . .

Pee-nus (pinus) for pine trees.
The one that really drives me crazy is Scotch Bloom!!

Good thing she didn't ask over the radio if you HAD any gonorrhea.

Unless they're from overseas, they're probably getting the Pee-nus from plant pronunciation guides written there.

lol, ron. yes, it could have been worse.

interesting thread, though i have to admit that some of the mispronounciations have left perplexed as to their real identity. they must be really mangled.

Oh, don't bring up peonies! Did you see my pee OH nee remark? The only solution to peonies is to point. You say something wrong your whole life and it's just right, that's all. I grew up with a mother who said (besides pee OH nee) "dwaddle" instead of "dawdle," and it took me 20 years into adulthood to get over it.

You should've exclaimed "Mother, 'dwaddle' is twaddle!".

When you pronounce the genus Pinus as "pee-nus" its species names take on a new dimension: P. contorta, P. flexilis, P. ponderosa, and, of course, P. rigida being some of rather many humorous examples.

a new dimension indeed! lol, ron! goodness graciousness me, botanical latin, especially when said with an . . uh, er . . unique accent is certainly not dull.

I guess nobody mentioned "private" for privet, I've heard that more than once. You can see how that would get started: private hedge.

I just caught myself asking if a variety was prostate. I know I've said worse.

A slight diversion from the topic, but have you seen any "ordinary" plant so often misspelled as FUCHSIA? It might help those who can never quite remember how to spell it to know that the plant was named after a man named FUCH, so you take his name and add SIA to the end.

Lord only knows what pronunciation that might lead to.

Patrick

Stokes aster (stokesia) was named after Dr. Stokes. I had a wholesaler argue with me that the correct pronunciation was sto-kee-sia, not stokes-ia, even when informed of how it got its name.
Ron, love the pinus rigida! LOL!!

And the other guy was named Fuchs, actually.

A sense of houmor seasoned with grace and tact keeps it all in perspective I think ... How do ya all pronounce, taxnonomy? : )

you're so right about Fuchs, Ron. this I knew ... just had a senior moment there!

Patrick

Actually Kellie, your wholesaler was perfectly correct. Latinized proper names seldom carry the same pronunciation they do without that appellation. Both pronunciations are perfectly acceptable, although the wholesaler's is the more common usage.

Albertine, I was thinking it right when I came to your message. I *always* start to say "Prostate Rosemary." Used to even crack up my dwaddling mother. I love hearing that someone else has the same crossed wire (or crossed legs when I say it around my DH)

This one's probably a little obscure, but I had someone ask for Chamaecyparis thyroides again today(supposed to be thyoides without the r). And last season, someone was put out because they bought Viburnum carlesii 'Aurora' and it didn't bloom yellow. "It sounds so close to 'Aurea' that there's no excuse for it not to be yellow!!" LOL!

Oh geez, there is MISPRONUNCIATION and then there is mispronounciation. And then there is my boyfriend. He was on a job the other day and spoke with the woman who owed the home, and would you believe that woman had chlamydia growing everywhere?! He was pleased to be able to share with me this bit of gardening conversation he had. he told her proudly that I, his girlfriend, also had chlamydia. I pray to god no one else overheard this conversation. Upon investigation I learned that the woman had Clematis. He thinks Clematis sounds naughty but Chlamydia sounds fine, if you can believe that!

We have a neighbor who has planted Jupiters and Ivories with great success.

Deb

As long as we can all laugh about our ignorance, it's all good. I like using the latin names, but probably don't pronouce more than half correctly. When I ask for pronunciation, I get different answers anyway. I write them down.

I remember being an ignoramus and tentatively calling a little bush I'd never seen before a "heeb". I was overheard and very snottily informed that "It is pronounced with TWO syllables, so it's "HEE BEE" " - all this delivered with a very frowny face.

I certainly remember to say both syllables now, but I sure didn't buy anything at their booth. Eeek!

I think "Heeb" may be fairly usual in some circles, so apart from not getting any of your money the scowler may have shown they didn't know as much about it as they thought.

This has been one of the best threads ever! Thanks everyone for making my laugh over and over!

Thanks Ron, I feel better now. LOL As I remember, they also mentioned something about my one-syllable pronunciation being offensive to the Jewish community, which took quite a while for me to figure out. I can be awfully dense on occasion. :-) At any rate, I was glad there were plenty of other booths.

One of my pet peeves is those who don't understand that both "i"s need to be pronounced at the end of specific epithets named after people. This is necessary in order to keep the epithet in the genitive case. The failure to pronounce both "i"s probably comes from a misguided instinct to preserve the stress in the same place that it naturally falls in the person's name. Pronouncing both "i"s usually displaces the stress one syllable forward, but that is correct.
If you say "Rhododendron thom-SOHN-ee-eye" for [Rhododendron thomsonii] then it sounds like you're saying "Thomson's Rhododendron" to someone who's had a bit of Latin. If you say "Rhododendron THOM-son-eye", then it sounds like you're saying "Thomson Rhododendron"...something's missing.

Maybe it's because people now-a-days already have too much stress in their lives, want to reduce it, rather than preserve it. So they say Thom-son-eye, instead of Thom-son-ee-eye. Old MacDonald knew better, though:

Ee-eye
Ee-eye
Oh.

heatherisnotaweed, my stomach is sore from laughing. I'm telling everyone I meet that you caught clematis

Hew CHAIR ee uh (Heuchera).

I was not all that surprised, as the person who said it worked at a hardware store. However, what did surprise me was that this same person very knowledegeably discussed the color nuances of Heuchera 'Dulce Creme Brulee' vs 'Dulce Peach Melba' with me.

That said, Ace Hardware here in Olympia is selling these plants for $5.99 per gallon (compare that to $15.99 per gallon at one of the local nurseries).

Cathy

My bad: Ni-coat-ee-anna. Nursery correction today was Nih-ko-shee-anna and then finally, Taunton's pronunciation guide: Nee-ko-shee-AY-na.

So there's Latin, but then there's Japanese: I mispronounced Rhododendron Hoe-tee-i when it should have been Hoe-tee. Was nearly laughed off the rhododendron fields the other day, but it worked out. They still took my money.

I just call it Rhododendron 'Hottie'

Cotton-easter has been mentioned but we forgot Croakia cotton-easter.