pronunciations

[Mark Walker]

Thanks for this reply, Ernest.  WHY-DE-MY-ER-EE-EYE is exactly the sort of
thing I was trying to make a point about.

Mark Walker.
Now in Brownsville, TX

Ernest Williams wrote:

> Lep folks,
> 
> Despite some saying that pronunciations don't matter, they DO 
> matter to
> many people.  When I started working with leps, I was very hesitant to
> pronounce the names of many species for fear of saying them 
> wrong - and at
> the first Lep. Soc. meeting I attended (20 years ago), I 
> asked someone a
> question about _anicia_ (a-NISS-ee-a, soft "c") and I didn't 
> understand the
> reply, which referred to a-NICK-ee-a (hard "c").  That one 
> may be moot now,
> but the point is still there.  Communication does not always 
> take place
> when the same name is pronounced differently.
> 
> Once I started to put a talk together for the annual Lep Soc 
> meeting about
> pronunciations of scientific names, but I was told that 
> someone had already
> done that previously, that it was not helpful, and that I was 
> foolish if I
> thought I had much to say about the matter.  What I HAVE 
> learned is this:
> 
> 1. There are no single correct pronunciations of scientific 
> names.  Though
> the names have originated in Latin and Greek, they are quite 
> modernized and
> (generally) anglicized.  In short, no one can tell you that your
> pronunciation is wrong.
> 2. There may be some rules, however, about pronunciations - 
> accenting the
> penult or antepenult, for example - that are useful, but they 
> are not well
> known or well followed.
> 3. People who have studied Latin and Greek pronounce many 
> names a little
> differently than people who have not studied classical languages.
> 4. Despite the above points, many names are pronounced in a 
> fairly standard
> manner by most lepidopterists.  That is what Mark is referring to.
> 5. We all are so used to our own pronunciations that other 
> pronunciations
> can be distracting and perceived to be "wrong".  E.g., the 
> when there are
> two i's at the end of the name, I say "ee-eye", as with the name of my
> favorite bug _gillettii_, and I'm so used to that 
> pronunciation that others
> seem strange.
> 6. When a species or genus is named after a person, there is also the
> question of whether you should pronounce the scientific name 
> the way the
> person pronounced his/her name.  Should _Speyeria_ be SPEY-er-EE-a,
> SCHPEY-er-EE-a, or Spe-YER-ee-a?  If you think you know the 
> answer to this
> one, could you please tell me how to pronounce 
> _weidemeyerii_? (note the
> two i's at the end-).
> 
> That's enough.  Besides, someone will want to correct 
> something I said!
> 
> Ernest Williams
>