pronunciations

spruance at infinet.com spruance at infinet.com
Sat Jul 28 11:01:38 EDT 2001


Jim,

Good to hear from you.  It's been awhile.

The Borror book is:  Dictionary of word roots and combining forms. 
copyright by Borror in 1960.  The eleventh printing was in 1971, and was
available in paperback from Mayfield Publishing Company in Palo Alto
California in the early 1970's for less than $10.00

If you cannot find it at Amazon, you might try www.abebooks.com  ABE
books is one of the best places to look for used books in the World. 
Last time I looked, ABE books had listing of nearly 1,000 books on
Lepidoptera, butterflies, and moths.  ABE represents all your favorite
dealers, such as Classey, and a host of other dealers you'd never find
on your own.

I acquired some of Borror's class handouts from some of his former
students here at OSU in Columbus.

Best wishes from Columbus Ohio

Eric



1_iron wrote:
> 
> Eric, et al:
> 
> Many thanks for the discussion of pronunciation of sci names. I live in
> (lepidopteron) isolation here in south Ga, and only my specimens hear what I
> call them. I have always pronounced "ae" as long "e" because I had, of all
> things, German in college. A rule of thumb in that language is that "ie" and
> "ei" takes the long sound of the latter vowel; thus ...stein is ...stine and
> ...stien is ...steen.
> 
> I'll try Amazon for the Borror book.
> 
> Jim Taylor
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Eric or Pat Metzler" <spruance at infinet.com>
> To: <leps-l at lists.yale.edu>
> Sent: Friday, July 27, 2001 9:03 PM
> Subject: Re: pronunciations
> 
> > Good topic, and the answers are already known.  We just have to do our
> > research.
> >
> > Don Borror was an expert on the subject.  He taught classes and wrote the
> > book referenced by Jane Dillonaire.  I have copies of several editions of
> > his class notes that were the basis for the book.  If you want to talk
> about
> > pronounciation, you have to have a copy of Don's book.  It is still
> > available and inexpensive.
> >
> > In the meantime, we have to remember two things.
> >
> > FIRST of all, scientific words are latinized, they are not necessarily
> > Latin.  For example, a species named after Bethune as bethunei does not
> > become "beh thu neee iii."  It is "beh thune i."   It is Bethune's name
> with
> > a long i on the end.  We don't change Bethune's name just because we
> > latinized it.  On the other hand, some words, like Patricia, are Latin
> words
> > and need no modification in spelling nor pronounciation.  A copy of good
> > Latin dictionary is very helpful for learning these things.
> >
> > Also, Borror makes a point of stressing the root of the word when trying
> to
> > understand the pronounciation.  Many of the scientific words were created
> > from Greek roots, thus their pronounciation relies on knowledge of Greek.
> > As all of us try to apply our high school and college Latin to scientific
> > names, we will not know the answers until we know the roots of the words,
> > and from whence they came.  So, add a good Greek dictionary to your list
> of
> > books to buy.
> >
> > For names from Russian, add a Russian dictionary.  You get the idea.
> >
> > Until the early 20th century, and much later for experts like Borror and
> > Franclemont, knowledge of Greek and Latin roots was required for persons
> who
> > coined a scientific name.  These subjects were commonly taught.  These
> guys
> > knew what they were talking about.  If you look at many of Grote's
> > descriptions, he even gives the scientific name in Greek as well as Latin.
> >
> > Secondly, Look at different pronounciations of the same word.  People in
> > "Deh troit" Michigan bristle at persons who say "DEEE troit," and try to
> get
> > by saying "Orrr eee gahn" in the state of "Ore eh gun."
> >
> > So, for common words, like the dae ending of animal family names, or the
> > aceae ending of family plant names, Borror is the undisputed authority.
> For
> > all others, whether "Cat ah ca lla" or "Cat OH cay lah," you have to know
> > the roots and the correct combinations.  Everything else is just guessing.
> >
> > Cheers from Columbus, Ohio
> >
> > Eric
> >
> > "Jane Dillonaire" <jdillonaire at rcn.com> wrote in message
> > news:9jsn87$jo3$1 at bob.news.rcn.net...
> > > According to Borror (in _Dictionary of Word Roots and Combining Forms_),
> > the
> > > diphthong "ae" is pronounced as a long e - like in "Pete".  By the way,
> I
> > > find this book indispensable.  Knowing the meaning of the roots helps me
> > to
> > > remember the species as well as the scientific name.
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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> >
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> >
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> >
> >
> >

 
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