pronunciation

J.E. Shields jshields@indy.net
Tue, 27 Jul 2010 06:55:21 PDT
Another aspect of scientific languages that we have not mentioned here is 
the broad adoption of English as the de facto international language of 
business and science in the last 50 years.  As a result, the ambiguous 
relation of spelling to pronunciation that is so characteristic of English 
is invading the field of botany as well, I suspect.

The classical Latin pronunciation is probably not so foreign to most 
speakers of European languages other than English. On the other side of the 
Atlantic, it leaves most Americans a bit confused, I'd guess.

The pragmatic approach seems to be to find a mutually comprehensible 
pronunciation with the individual with whom you are discussing botany, and 
stick with that for the duration of the conversation.  In my experience, 
each new conversation requires a new set of pronunciations, in practice.

Jim Shields


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Jim Shields             USDA Zone 5             Shields Gardens, Ltd.
P.O. Box 92              WWW:    http://www.shieldsgardens.com/
Westfield, Indiana 46074, USA
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