> If we have to take notice of how the original names were spoken, I would > be amused to know if there are any plants named after English persons > called either Cholmondley or Featherstonehough. In the UK the former is > pronounced Chumly and the second Fanshawe. :-) A Scottish lady told me what is written Mingus is pronounced Menzies. Or was it the other way around? There is a Mingus Mountain here in Arizona (on which lies the town of Jerome, or Geronimo in Spanish, or Hieronymous to others...) and isn't there a fuzzy house plant in California (that makes new plantlets from the leaf sinus and in habitat grows under redwood trees) named Menzies' something-or-other? And how about those Welsh? Malagasy (the language of Madagascar) is very easy to pronounce, having not so many sounds. But most people who look at the written Malagasy word can't figure out how the sound comes out. The transcription into the Latin alphabet was invented by a Welshman. If only my keyboard had the phonemes used by linguists rather than the Latin alphabet. Leo Martin Phoenix Arizona USA