Pronunciation watch

[Bryn]

Concerning dissect, you are right, but in my entire career as a biologist I never heard it pronounced with the correct short i. So if the entire world of biologists pronounces it with a long i, I doubt chiding by etymologists is going to have much effect!

Hmm. Whether looking for parasitic nematodes in locusts while working at the C.O.P.R.or Rhyssa persuasoria larvae in wood wasps at the Sirex Biological Control Unit of the CSIRO, I never 'dysected', I always dissected. No biologist I ever worked with 'dysected', not even the Aussie who pronounced Streatham as 'stree-tham'.

[vinteuil]

... But oh how disproportionately pleasing I find it when I hear somebody using the correct pronunciation.

... how truly spoken - as a lifelong dis-sector it is indeed a joy to encounter that pronunciation.

Curiously I'm pretty indifferent to the various pronunciations of margarine and vitamins. Don't believe in them, ennyways...

Since there are proper scientists around here - what is the view on lichen -

litchen or lyken??

[french frank]

Concerning dissect, you are right, but in my entire career as a biologist I never heard it pronounced with the correct short i. So if the entire world of biologists pronounces it with a long i, I doubt chiding by etymologists is going to have much effect!

Perhaps it's only the specialists who get it wrong. I'm not sure that I've ever hear dy-sect when used in the more general sense: fig. and transf. To take to pieces, so as to lay bare every part; to examine minutely part by part, to analyze; to criticize in detail. E.g. an argument.

[Lat-Literal]

Confused.

Dilate, diverse.

Dilute, distil.

Divide.

Vivisection.

???

[umslopogaas]

Vinteuil. Prof. David Hawksworth, who is a lichen expert with whom I once worked (not on lichens), pronounced it lyken: long i, hard k.




















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[umslopogaas]

Lat-literal, I have always thought dilate, diverse, dilute all had a long i: die-late. Distil, divide and vivisection all have a short i: dih-stil.

[vinteuil]

Vinteuil. Prof. David Hawksworth, who is a lichen expert with whom I once worked (not on lichens), pronounced it lyken: long i, hard k.

... thanks for that. Cambridge seem to think that Brits go for litchen and Americans go for lyken -

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/pronunciation/english/lichen

[umslopogaas]

Bryn, that's fascinating, I never expected to meet another insect pathologist on these boards! Did you ever find any parasitic nematodes (mermithids?) in your locusts? And pardon my ignorance, what is Rhyssa?

My own interest in locust pathology centred on the entomopathogenic Deuteromycotina (we all have our jargon). Type LUBILOSA into Google and all will be revealed.

I worked briefly in CSIRO in Canberra, but I cant remember anyone there or anywhere else pronouncing dissect with a short i.

[Bryn]

Bryn, that's fascinating, I never expected to meet another insect pathologist on these boards! Did you ever find any parasitic nematodes (mermithids?) in your locusts? And pardon my ignorance, what is Rhyssa?

My own interest in locust pathology centred on the entomopathogenic Deuteromycotina (we all have our jargon). Type LUBILOSA into Google and all will be revealed.

I worked briefly in CSIRO in Canberra, but I cant remember anyone there or anywhere else pronouncing dissect with a short i.

My work with locusts was in the early 1970s. i was a humble A.S.O. at the time and one of my tasks was to sample five locusts each day from each of many breeding cages and dissect them to check for nematodes. If any were found, the whole cage was dispensed with. This was on the top floor of a building (now gone) behind the then Pontins store in Kensington High Street. A few years previously my first real job was at the Sirex Biological Control Unit, a CSIRO outpost at teh Imperial College site at Silwood Park, Ascot. As to Rhyssa p., the easiest way is to link to the YouTube item below:

The Unit was sited in the U.K. since here Urocerous gigas and Sirex noctilio tend only to lay in dead wood, whereas in Australia they became partial to live trees, so we were not worried about escapees.

[Lat-Literal]

Lat-literal, I have always thought dilate, diverse, dilute all had a long i: die-late. Distil, divide and vivisection all have a short i: dih-stil.

Yes exactly, thank you. I just wondered whether the "di" prefix was different in origin in these two groups and that accounts for the difference in pronunciation. I added "vivisection" (from "in vivo" with an ee sound??) as that was a similar word to those being discussed. My mind is fairly slow today so I am probably missing something embarrassingly obvious.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Yes exactly, thank you. I just wondered whether the "di" prefix was different in origin in these two groups and that accounts for the difference in pronunciation. I added "vivisection" (from "in vivo" with an ee sound??) as that was a similar word to those being discussed. My mind is fairly slow today so I am probably missing something embarrassingly obvious.

It's not a "di" prefix here, though, Lats - it's a "dis", all words beginning with which have the short "i". (As do, perhaps ironically, "dys" prefixed words. like "dysfunctional" and "dystopia".)

[umslopogaas]

Thanks Bryn, at the risk of going round the facts again, because I have had a few drinks, did you know of : LUBILOSA? An acronym for Lutte Biologique contre les Locustes et Sauteriaux (check spelling). Google will give much info. (Not written by me, but accurate).

See ch. 23 in "Microbial Control of Insect and Mite Pests: from Theory to Practice." ed. Lawrence Lacey. I couldnt have done it on my own, but with much help from my co-authors, I think we did a good job.

[Lat-Literal]

It's not a "di" prefix here, though, Lats - it's a "dis", all words beginning with which have the short "i". (As do, perhaps ironically, "dys" prefixed words. like "dysfunctional" and "dystopia".)

Oh yes, of course.

Thanks ferney for the clarification.

[french frank]

it's a "dis", all words beginning with which have the short "i". (As do, perhaps ironically, "dys" prefixed words. like "dysfunctional" and "dystopia".)

Though in the case of distil(l), it was dē + stillare - to drop (down), not di. But that makes the difference.

[Bryn]

Thanks Bryn, at the risk of going round the facts again, because I have had a few drinks, did you know of : LUBILOSA? An acronym for Lutte Biologique contre les Locustes et Sauteriaux (check spelling). Google will give much info. (Not written by me, but accurate).

See ch. 23 in "Microbial Control of Insect and Mite Pests: from Theory to Practice." ed. Lawrence Lacey. I couldnt have done it on my own, but with much help from my co-authors, I think we did a good job.

It was new to me. I have been out of the field for several decades now. My last dealings with mites concerned red spider mites on apple trees and the possibility using phytoseiid mites to control them (this during a brief stint at the East Malling Research Station back in the '80s). Unfortunately the use of organophosphates in the 1950s had effectively wiped out the most voracious phytoseiid species, Amblyseius finlandicus.