pronunciations

[Ron Gatrelle]

----- Original Message -----
From: "gwang" <gwang at mb.sympatico.ca>


> P.S.  It has just occured to me that over the years I've heard many
> different pronounciations of 'ae'.  Some use a long a sound, while
> others pronounce it like the i in pile.  Is there a correct
> pronounciation?  I took a latin course several years ago (when I was in
> grade 9), and I think people who spoke classical latin used the latter
> pronounciation, but that seems not to be the pronounciation of choice
> these days.  And while on the subject, just how are amateurs like myself
> supposed to learn correct/popular pronounciations anyway?  I mean, you
> see latin names in print all the time, but rarely will you hear it
> actually spoken by professionals.  Just how is one supposed to pronounce
> something that ends in 'ceae'?
>

It is interesting to hear how lepidopterists pronounce names differently
when they get together. I suppose that with the increased usage of common
names the correct (technical) ones are not heard to much any more.

Many years ago I had the privilege of meeting and spending some time in the
field with Dr A. E. Brower. His son lived in Savannah GA and was a friend
of my friend Dr. R. T. Arbogast. Brower was one of the top moth experts in
the country. He wrote the 1968 updated version of Holland's classic Moth
Book. Brower came up here to Charleston for day of collecting while on a
visit to his son in Savannah (Brower was a resident of Maine). He was
especially interested in a spot where I had found some Underwing Moths -
Catocala. This genus was one of his specialties. Now Brower was well up in
years when we met and I was immediately taken by the trouble I had keeping
up with him - he walked at a joggers pace.

Before I met Dr. Brower,  and afterward, I had/have only heard Catocala
pronounce as - Ka tock a la. -  Brower pronounced it Cat o call a .  We had
corresponded before we met and "Catocala" was of course written by him in
his letters - but I pronounced it my way as I read it.  That day in the
field he immediately corrected me and said,   "it is Cat o call a
not Ka tock a la."  My suspicion all these years is that his pronunciation
is the correct one and all  the rest of us have it wrong. If I recall he
was near 80 when we met. I never heard him use a common name and when we
corresponded and exchanged specimens he also only used the
scientific names for butterflies and moths. I am sure if I go back and dig
out the old letters from Clench, dos Passos, Gray & others we rarely (if
ever) used
common names in our letters. How times have changed in the last 30 years.

I pronounce ae as a hard A as in ate.

Ron


 
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