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How do you pronounce names

This weekend my father in law (has a PhD in herpetology) and I were talking carnivorous plants and I noticed he pronounced the scientific names totally different then me. How do you pronounce them?
ex.1 S. leucophylla
I say: luke oh file a
he says: lew coff ill a
ex.2 S.oreophila
I say: oreo fill a
He says: oh rif ill a
ex. S. flava
me: flaw va
him: flay va
ex. alata
me: a la ta
him: ay late a
we did pronounce sarracenia and rubra the same.:boogie:
 
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That's why herpetologists generally aren't allowed out in public.
 
That's why herpetologists generally aren't allowed out in public.

Ha! Good one. It's like reading fantasy novels with crazy names. I say them one way in my head while reading and hear it differently from the author. I generally don't have to worry about it since I know zero people that I verbally speak to about plants, anyhow. For the time being, I'll settle for just spelling everything correctly!

xvart.
 
Any time there's a "phyll" it should be pronounced like "file".
Latin names of colors, etc, have a different "a" than we usually use in English, its more of an "ah".
"ii" at the end is like "e-i" (seriously, like saying the letter e, then the letter i)
"ea" is "a-uh"
"ae" = "a" (slightly different than the normal English "a")
Lots of names are either a botanists name plus one of those endings, (iae in some cases (pronounced "e-a"), or the name of a place followed by "iensis" lol.
 
I always thought the "c" in leucophylla was pronounced like an "s" ...."loo-so-fiy-la"
Am I wrong?
 
Sarracenias are easy because there are so few species. No matter how badly I pronounce alata, no one is likely to think I'm talking about a rubra. Orchids are different because there are about 56,457,234,012 species and anytime you mispronounce the name of one, you're likely to be correctly pronouncing the name of another.
 
  • #10
..........that's why the common names come in so handy for the more commonly grown CP's. ;)
 
  • #11
I HATE HATE HATE common names!

In my head I pronounce things not always the same as if I were to speak them. In my head, phylla will always be filla, but of course I would pronounce it properly if I were to speak it. I always say the word EX in my head when I see a hybrid.

I do not pronounce leuco as "luke-o". I say it as "lieuco" as in "in lieu". Fortunately it's a "dead" language so we get some freedom with the pronunciation. I was pleased when I saw that video with Rob Cantley. I was very happy to hear him speak, because I discovered then that I had been pronouncing everything properly all along. He did say "cross" instead of "ex", but other than that I say the same things.
 
  • #12
I thought some of those pronunciations sounded goofy. Definitely different that I've ever heard any professors say them. Maybe it's because he's British?
 
  • #14
Idk maybe all my professors just pronounced it a certain way...in the video it just sounded off. There was one or two where I was just like "WHOAH! what???". Unless you speak Latin (well 2 or 3 of them did), then almost everyone is bound to pronounce it different. I'm not too sure about saying it like "lieuco". Think about leukocytes or leukemia. Same word, same pronunciation, just w/ a K instead of a C.

I've only verbally spoken to one person about them, and we pronounced things differently. Oh well lol.
 
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