pronunciation
J.E. Shields (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.
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