Pronunciation watch

[french frank]

The online OED gives the pronunciation 'dis-sect' and says nothing about any alternative, whether current or obsolete!

Exactly.

[french frank]

Under dissect, OED says:

a. spec. To cut up (an animal body, a plant, etc.) for the purpose of displaying the position, structure, and relations of the various internal parts; to anatomize.

[ahinton]

Under dissect, OED says:
a. spec. To cut up (an animal body, a plant, etc.) for the purpose of displaying the position, structure, and relations of the various internal parts; to anatomize.

OK, so don't let's get too cut up about it...

[Word]

In what is probably two steps back, the Cambridge Dictionary lists both pronunciations and their recorded examples would suggest that the longer 'i' is preferred in English, as it was during my schooldays when we were tasked with troubling a frog, and the shorter one more common on the other side of the pond .

[jean]

Exactly.

I see -it's the word disect that's obsolete, rather than any particular pronunciation of dissect.

[french frank]

I see -it's the word disect that's obsolete, rather than any particular pronunciation of dissect.

Yes, that's what I meant. I was surprised at that. I didn't think anyone would pronounce dissect as dy-sect, so, like me, I presume they thought there were two separate words? (Which there were once)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I see -it's the word disect that's obsolete, rather than any particular pronunciation of dissect.

Aah - lux facta est!

[Serial_Apologist]

Aah - lux facta est!

Let soap so.

[Pulcinella]

Yes, that's what I meant. I was surprised at that. I didn't think anyone would pronounce dissect as dy-sect, so, like me, I presume they thought there were two separate words? (Which there were once)

Oops, then!
I think I've always said DIE--SECT.
Also DIE--SECTION.
Not sure what, if anything, that says about me.
Grew up in Liverpool (well, Crosby, so we thought we were posh), so I'm interested to see what jean thinks.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Let soap so.

[jean]

Grew up in Liverpool (well, Crosby, so we thought we were posh), so I'm interested to see what jean thinks.

Anfield didn't even pretend to be posh, but school in the city centre was fairly neutral in class terms.

That's the only place where I've ever dissected anything, and I think we said diss-, but I only did it for Biology O level, so I really can't remember.

[Serial_Apologist]

While on the subject of the Die or Di pronunciation, on tonight's Planet Earth II, David Attenborough - of all people! - pronounced direct with the short i, dirrect, not die-rect, which, for a man of his education, I would not have anticipated.

[Pulcinella]

Anfield didn't even pretend to be posh, but school in the city centre was fairly neutral in class terms.

That's the only place where I've ever dissected anything, and I think we said diss-, but I only did it for Biology O level, so I really can't remember.

In my time at MTS Crosby, Biology was not taught at O level, only at A level (which always surprised me, not that I wanted to study it!), so I've never had a lesson in dissection. I chopped worms in two to see what happened, though.

[french frank]

While on the subject of the Die or Di pronunciation, on tonight's Planet Earth II, David Attenborough - of all people! - pronounced direct with the short i, dirrect, not die-rect, which, for a man of his education, I would not have anticipated.

I would say dirr-ect if uttering a sentence like, 'Could you direct me to the town library, please?'. But I think this happens because of the characteristic stress in English. A stressed vowel gets its full value, an unstressed vowel (as in di-RECT) ends up as a sort of undifferentiated schwa.

[jean]

In my time at MTS Crosby...

Ah, Merchant Taylors...very posh.

This morning I asked OH who actually went to boarding school herself, but whose nephews went to MTS, about the disputed pronunciation. She would have no truck at all with diss-. I don't know what that tells us.

... Biology was not taught at O level, only at A level (which always surprised me, not that I wanted to study it!)

At Blackburne House it existed so that girls who weren't scientifically inclined would have the necessary Science among their O levels.

It wasn't very scientific in those days I think. I liked it because I could draw the insides of the rats I'd pulled apart (I can smell the formaldehyde now!)