Did I miss something, or did we recently decide to pronounce it Irarnian, rather than Irainian?

And come to think of it, when did Caribbeeeean become CarIbbean? Or clEmatis instead of clemaitis? Or kIlometre and not kilOmetre?

Maybe I was brought up wrong (in Essex), but I still have trouble adopting the current pronunciation of these words

Iran , E-ran , I-ran ...

I've heard all sorts of pronunciation over the years - it was easier when it was just called Persia

I find a languid summer afternoon punctuated by the company of Charlotte Green, Harriet Cass or Alice Arnold usually helps.

Best, Chris

Eether, ither ,lets call the whole thing off!

Potato Tomato

quote:

Originally posted by Nero:
Did I miss something, or did we recently decide to pronounce it Irarnian, rather than Irainian?

And come to think of it, when did Caribbeeeean become CarIbbean? Or clEmatis instead of clemaitis? Or kIlometre and not kilOmetre?

Maybe I was brought up wrong (in Essex), but I still have trouble adopting the current pronunciation of these words

Iranian and Caribbean: I think this is just willful mispronunciation for the sake of being different/appearing clever. Rather like when, in the early seventies, people started saying REEsearch, instead of reSEARCH (the point being you don't stress a weak prefix in Latin)

clematis: strictly this is Latin, because all scientific terms for plants are Latin, but it comes from the earlier Greek clematis and most Greek words are stressed on the second syllable

kilometre: by analogy with the above, because the prefix is Greek, arguably it should be stressed on the second syllable; however meter has old English, Latin and Greek antecedents, so it's anyone's guess really. And not many people go round saying kilOgram.

As with many of these 'rules', they are actually the arbitrary inventions of past grammarians which have no basis in linguistics. The most egregious of these 'rules' being the absurd prohibition of 'split infinitives' ('to boldly go').

I remember Keith Joseph pronouncing "callibre" as "cal-eye-bre," years ago, in describing that US based Scot [Sir Ian Something-or-other] brought in to run the National Coal Board and to provoke the strikle with Scargill.

Strange, and pseudo-clever pronounciation is nothing new.

ATB from George

Sir Ian MacGregor.

Spud gun

quote:

Originally posted by Christopher_M:
I find a languid summer afternoon punctuated by the company of Charlotte Green, Harriet Cass or Alice Arnold usually helps.

Best, Chris

I'm a Mishal Hussain person myself, both for the visuals (mmmm) and the wonderful precise enunciation.

oh come on, what about Reeta Chakrabarti? Lubbly jubbly - and she must also be one of the best dressed reporters

Thanks for the clarification Jeremy - you sound like an authority, so I think I'll fall back on the pronunciations I feel comfortable with