Although my pedantry is now well established, I don't think anyone should be chastised for not knowing how to pronounce plant names when they're not English in origin.
I love words and have always taken great delight in learning the proper names for plants - but I can understand why the gen. public want a common name for everything they grow, and prefer, for instance, Dawn Redwood to Metasequoia glyptostroboides or Busy Lizzie to Impatiens walleriana. But how do we distinguish between all those different bamboos without learning that the one with the yellow stripe on the canes is Phyllostachys aureosulcata f.aureocaulis??? Very few have common names, and anyway, a common name in one country (or even one part of Britain) will often vary from the common name in another.
Obviously we need the botanical names. I've told the story before of customers at the garden centre asking for "Black-eyed Susan", and having to establish whether they wanted Thunbergia alata or a Rudbeckia. But perhaps I should be a bit more tolerant of those who are less fascinated by the "proper" names than I am...
Since 2019 I've lived in east Clare, in the west of Ireland.
Reminds me of the English family on holiday in Wales. They did their best to pronounce the place names correctly, but one place they visited had them stumped. They went to a café for lunch, and when the waitress came, they asked her, "How should we pronounce the name of this place?". She looked at them as if they were a halfpenny short of a shilling, and said, slowly and deliberately, "MACDONALD'S".
Some plants are not fortunate enough to have 'English' colloquial names ; when I worked at Whitestone Nurseries in N.Yorkshire in the 1980's we dealt with species of cacti with names like Uebelmannia buiningii , Austrocephalocereus dolichospermaticus ,and the delightfully Jurassic sounding S.African succulents Pterodiscus ngamicus and Raphionacme hirsuta !! Neobuxbaumia euphorbioides was a favourite of mine .
I completely get the whole unique names thing (although as a failed Latin student many moons ago I regret that Esperanto never made it onto the world stage) but I often feel for those illiterate gardeners and farm workers from previous centuries. I sometimes feel their pain as I am sure many of the 'literate' gentry just didn't write things down proper and then insisted only they could be correct as, look, its written down. I see the same issues on Indian restaurant menus.
I have reached a point where its necessary to write things down, just wish I didn't have to do it letter by letter and then change it a year later. And don't get me started on apostrophes
"The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it." Sir Terry Pratchett
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I'm sure the OP is rather livid this thread has turned into something so interesting and witty.
Ma called it Cotton Easter for years ... until she joined the WI in her forties and made some gardening friends.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Although my pedantry is now well established, I don't think anyone should be chastised for not knowing how to pronounce plant names when they're not English in origin.
I love words and have always taken great delight in learning the proper names for plants - but I can understand why the gen. public want a common name for everything they grow, and prefer, for instance, Dawn Redwood to Metasequoia glyptostroboides or Busy Lizzie to Impatiens walleriana. But how do we distinguish between all those different bamboos without learning that the one with the yellow stripe on the canes is Phyllostachys aureosulcata f.aureocaulis??? Very few have common names, and anyway, a common name in one country (or even one part of Britain) will often vary from the common name in another.
Obviously we need the botanical names. I've told the story before of customers at the garden centre asking for "Black-eyed Susan", and having to establish whether they wanted Thunbergia alata or a Rudbeckia. But perhaps I should be a bit more tolerant of those who are less fascinated by the "proper" names than I am...
To revert to place names, I'll add 2 from Northumberland; Ulgham (pronounced Uffam) and Cambois (Cammus).
Reminds me of the English family on holiday in Wales. They did their best to pronounce the place names correctly, but one place they visited had them stumped. They went to a café for lunch, and when the waitress came, they asked her, "How should we pronounce the name of this place?". She looked at them as if they were a halfpenny short of a shilling, and said, slowly and deliberately, "MACDONALD'S".
Some plants are not fortunate enough to have 'English' colloquial names ; when I worked at Whitestone Nurseries in N.Yorkshire in the 1980's we dealt with species of cacti with names like Uebelmannia buiningii , Austrocephalocereus dolichospermaticus ,and the delightfully Jurassic sounding S.African succulents Pterodiscus ngamicus and Raphionacme hirsuta !! Neobuxbaumia euphorbioides was a favourite of mine .
These are 'proper names' indeed !!!!
I feel uneasy about the suffix "hirsuta", I think it might not be as proper as you propose.
I completely get the whole unique names thing (although as a failed Latin student many moons ago I regret that Esperanto never made it onto the world stage) but I often feel for those illiterate gardeners and farm workers from previous centuries. I sometimes feel their pain as I am sure many of the 'literate' gentry just didn't write things down proper and then insisted only they could be correct as, look, its written down. I see the same issues on Indian restaurant menus.
I have reached a point where its necessary to write things down, just wish I didn't have to do it letter by letter and then change it a year later. And don't get me started on apostrophes
In Norfolk there is a village called 'Hautbois' ... how is that pronounced?
Thats right ... you've got it ... it's pronounced
'Obbis ...
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
For a start I live in Norn Iron as you know. It goes downhill from there...
Belvoir = Beaver
Bureau = Broo (my local and pronounced this way ironically as the unemployment bureau was called "the broo" back in the day).
Derrylin = Durln (or something)
Fintona = Fintna
Doagh = Can't even spell it but it's definitely not Doke and certainly not Doe!!!!
Broughshane = see "not Doke".
For all other placenames simply leave out the vowels.
...or sometimes the consonants... 