Pronunciation

[Midnight Reiter Too]

Do you just say plant names the way you think they're pronounced or do you try to learn the correct pronunciation? I look up the correct pronunciation and try to correct myself if I was wrong, but I run into people who are mispronouncing the names. I never correct them unless they are my children or grandchildren.

[John]

There are sometimes more than one correct pronunciation, so it is as well to be careful. I like to look it up, myself, but there are always those words we read often, but never actually hear anyone use out loud.

[Midnight Reiter Too]

There are sometimes more than one correct pronunciation, so it is as well to be careful. I like to look it up, myself, but there are always those words we read often, but never actually hear anyone use out loud.

"While botanists can't seem to agree on the correct pronunciation of Clematis, they all agree that they are generally easy-to-grow."
http://www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/hortnews ... matis.html

Online, there are dictionaries that have sound.
http://www.yourdictionary.com/clematis

CLEM-uh-tis

Clem, as in Clementine.

Yet I finally found a site, that allows a second pronunciation:
clema·tis (klem′ə tis, klə mat′is)
http://www.yourdictionary.com/clematis

I used to mispronounce hydrangea.

[John]

Clematis was exactly the example of which I was thinking.

I bet your way of saying Hydrangea is not incorrect, after all. Check Webster's second way.

And I am never going to say "For SYTH e a"...

[DryGulch]

John, never visit the Midwest...we all pronounce forsythia that way! I thnka lot of pronounciations are a bit of gardener regionalization, something like common names for plants.

[Chris_W]

I try to pronounce things the way they are supposed to be pronounced, but a few may not be exactly right but close enough.

And I also try not to correct people when they mispronounce things unless they really butcher it - especially if they add letters or syllables that simply don't exist in the names.

Every once in a while some snob will come along and try to tell me that I'm pronouncing things wrong and then butcher every single botanical name they attempt to "correct" me on. Those are the ones that crack me up

[Midnight Reiter Too]

No, I was totally saying hydrangea wrong. I thought the first "A" was long and I thought the "E" was also also long! But then I watched It's a Wonderful Life and heard Donna Reed say she was in the hydrangea bush.

Chris, I looked up the pronunciation of weigela so I wouldn't embarrass myself at the nursery. I asked if they had weigelas (wi gee luhs), and was told they have (wi jee luhs). I was wrong.

[John]

Mr. Webster's third choice has a long A and a long E...

[largosmom]

And, who the heck ever named a hosta "Sagae". I was told to say that "Su-gaw-hey" (U as in Up, gaw as in ah, and the e as in a long A. I couldn't even guess that one when I first saw it.

Hydrangea= Hi drange uh in my area.

I still can't pronounce Weigela.

I live in the town in Virginia called Newport News...local pronunciation sounds like the name "Rupert" not New-Port.

[KellieD]

I worked retail nursery for thirty years and what I finally figured is that as long as you can make yourself understood, pronunciation is not critical. EVERYONE calls spruce picea (soft c) (pi-SEE-ah) when the correct pronunciation is with a hard c (PI-kee-ah). If you were to ask for it with a hard c even a nurseryman would look at you and go "huh?".

My customers and I came to the agreement that if I could understand what they were looking for, what did the pronunciation matter? What was to say that I had it right?

[Chris_W]

I had a customer today ask if I had any "dieKANtruhs". I thought Dianthus? I told them I wasn't sure what they were asking for. They repeated "dieKANtruhs"! like I was an idiot or something. Then after a blank stare while I was trying to figure it out, think about the possibilities, they put me out of my misery... Bleeding hearts you idiot!

I told them I always called them Die-SEN-truh, but after Kellie now tells us that Picea should have a K sound, maybe I've been saying Dicentra wrong all these years too?

Then they asked if I had any lee-ree-OPE. At least now I understood they were asking for what I've always called lih-RYE-oh-pee. (Liriope) (By the way, this customer "corrected" me on both of my pronunciations. )

[kHT]

I agree with Kellie, after many go arounds with folks on how they pronounce things, I'll just ask them if it has a common name. Handing them the Sunset book also helps.

[John]

Every source I've checked shows a soft "c" pronunciation for Picea.

I think using a hard "c" would be comparable to calling the sports team the "Keltics"...

[Spider]

A picture says a thousand words. I guess instead of asking for things (not that I have a clue on latin names/words) I'll just bring a photo. Problem solved!

[KellieD]

Keltic is correct pronunciation for the Celtics of yore.

Regionally things are different as well. On the west Coast a rhododendron is a rhody, on the East Coast it is a rhodo.

My pronunciation source is the Dictionary of Plant Names by Allen J. Coombes.

Guess what, Chris. Dicentra is with a hard c, but I've never pronounced it that way.

[nanny_56]

I try to learn it the right way but...If I am not sur I will just say so and hope whoever will tell me! Chris taught me how to pronounce Caryopteris!

Couple years ago I went to a nursery and asked if they had any Echinacea. The lady looked at me completely blank until I said coneflower!

[Chris_W]

I looked into a few references too and found that classical, scholarly latin would dictate a hard K sound in Dicentra, but that botanical latin would more likely be pronounced using C as in Cent as related to spoken English. The first would be acceptable but the second way would be the norm.

I suppose if the customer had asked for Die-KEN-truh I might have guessed easier, but I was thrown by Die-KAN-truhs.

Of course, we always seem to be learning

[Tigger]

Just remember, botanical latin bears little resemblance to classical latin or even modern ecclesiastical/Roman (sung) latin. Classical latin had but 5 vowel sounds, where botanical latin has more like 10 (where diphthongs have replaced some pure latin vowels). The consonants, where they vary, follow the new vowel rules for hard and soft sounds, as they would be applied in English.

Add in the difficulty of (supposedly) pronouncing names that have been converted to "latin," and it gets crazy.

forsythia named for Forsyth (and so: "fore - syth" and not "fore - sith")
weigele named for the German scientist Weigel (and so: "vy - guh - luh" with a W like a V and a hard G?) As long as it's not "wy - gee - lee - uh"...
and even:
hosta named for the German Host (and so more like english "host" than "hahst")

Largosmom: on Sagae, it's a place in Japan, so of course it follows Japanese rules. Pronounce every letter, as best as you can, where "a" = "ah" and "e" = "eh". (for other japanese names, "i" = "ee", "o" = "oh" and "u" = "oo" unless the i or u are in the middle of the word, where they almost disappear as a schwa sound). Back to Sagae: "sah - gah - eh". The last two syllables blend into one, so it's almost like "sah - guy."

[Mary Ann]

Two hosta names I was really pronouncing wrong until I heard them roll off the tongue of Mark Zilis are fortunei (for-tune-e-i) and longipes (lon-ji-pees).

[Midnight Reiter Too]

Mr. Webster's third choice has a long A and a long E...

I can't find a link to that, but I did find hy-dranj-uh, with a long A here:

http://www.bartleby.com/61/14/H0341400.html

I guess I wasn't as dumb as I thought I was. Thanks. Since I live in Indiana, I hope I can pronounce it the same as people in Indiana do. I'm guessing that people say it Donna Reed's way around here. Can any other Hoosiers who post here tell me?