How do _you_ pronounce Stanhopea?
 

I have always pronounced it:
stan-hope-e-a
pronouncing both of the final two characters, long e, short a (ah).

I was reading somewhere yesterday, I think an AOS web page where it was said, that while the pronunciation that I use is common, the correct pronunciation is:
stan-hope-ah
the e is not pronounced.

The AOS pronunciation makes sense. Do others agree and how do _you_ pronounce Stanhopea?

Like you, I have always used Stan-HOPE-ee-uh, but as it is named after someone whose surname was "Stanhope", the AOS recommendation should be proper.

Then there's one of my favorites: neofinetia.

I have heared Nee-oh-fin-EESH-ah and Nee-oh-fin-eh-TEE-ah, but the French botanist's name is pronounced Fee-Nay, so I suppose it ought to be Nee-oh-fee-NAY-ee-ah

David,
Your pronunciation of Stanhopea is correct as far as I know. In fact, I've never heard it pronounced the way the AOS states it should be.

Ray,
I have also heard both versions of Neofinetia, but was corrected one time by Les Kawamoto's son (I wish I could remember his name) of Kawamoto Orchids in Hawaii. Ever since then I have pronounced it Nee-oh-fin-EESH-ah instead of Nee-oh-fin-eh-TEE-ah, as I had been saying.

Steve,

Sorry, but I have to disagree. Just because "experts" say it one way, that doesn't mean it's correct.

When an honorific name is applied to a genus or species, the name should be pronounced just as the person that it honors does (or did).

For example, there are a number of genera named after the American botanist, Oakes Ames. His last name is prounced just like "aims". One of those genera is "amesia", which is properly pronounced Aims-ee-ah, even though it could be improperly done as Ah-Mee-see-ah.

What was the French botanist's actual name?

Very true!! I forgot to mention that I'm not really sure of the correct way to say Neofinetia, just that I say it one way and not the other after someone laughed at me. lol

Achille Finet

Finet is not exactly pronounced Fee NAY, americans love to make the 'et' sound much stronger than it actually is. 'et' is actually pronounced like the first e in the words 'estate' or 'esteem'.
And in France I have mostly heard it prononced with the 't' being audible, so Nee-oh-fin-eh-TEE-ah. In Finet's name the t is silent, but usually with words like that once you add a vowel after it the t is pronounced. This is also getting into the issues of botanical names being pronounced a bit differently in different language. I frequently say orchid names the 'frenchified' way, because that's how I learned plant names in my botany classes in France...

Well this is some good information!! I guess I'll have to change the way I pronounce Neofinetia to Nee-oh-fin-eh-TEE-ah. Thanks! :bowing

It's not necessarily the 'right' way to pronounce it in English though. Each language tends to adapt the the pronunciation a bit. There is also more variation in pronunciation of plants named after people. For instance, for Paph rothschildianum I believe that in English the 'child' part is pronounced with a long 'i' sound. In French it's with more of an 'e' sound, like in the word 'me'.

But I don't think pronunciation is the most important. As long as we use the right names and can make ourselves understood, I think it's all that really matters. Even among scientists we don't pronounce things the same. Many of us in my research group work with a butterfly genus called Pieris (white cabbage butterflies). Some of us say Pee-riss, others say Pee-er-iss while a few people say Pie-russ.

In Latin every vowel is pronounced...but here is the catch. The language has more vowels than English. One of them is the diphthong merged -ae. We print the letters separately but they should be merged. the -ae is pronounced as the ai in aisle. Consequently the AOS pronunciation is technically correct. Read Botanical Latin by Wllian Stearn $29.95 retail but a little less on Amazon.

Too funny missmolly! Having studied Latin for 6 years, I always pronounce it like ai in aisle!!!! LOL....

You say tomato and I say tomawto

And over here ae is prononced totally differently, like a french 'è'! (see my post about Finet for the prunounciation). Personally I would never say it the 'aisle' way. I think it may depend on the type of Latin you learned. The basics I learned are from Roman latin I think. I just dug into this a bit deeper on internet, and like I said earlier, each language has adapted their pronunciation of latin. So the AOS prunounciation is technically correct...in English! ;)

"Tomayto, tomahto, let's call the whole thing off!" (this discussion could go on for ages, lol)

True, and there are no more true Latin speakers around to answer it! LOL... That's the beauty of a dead language, everyone has their own ideas and thoughts. I say, call stanhopea whatever you want!

As long as you know what you're saying, who really cares?!!!

I agree. There are numerous garden plants that aren't pronounced correctly as well. Or maybe there really is no correct way.

"Or maybe there really is no correct way."

I don't know. I certainly am not a Latin scholar. They still say "ain't" where I'm from and most of them actually think it's correct.

My only objection to your statement is that it's a frequent excuse for not bothering to learn the correct way. I am not the language police, nor do I want to become them.

As to whether there is "French" Latin and "English" Latin, I find that a curious position even if it's correct. Latin is Latin. What if I reversed the situation and said there is "Latin" French and "Latin" English. A language is a language. It stands on its own. If other languages butcher it, that's their problem. I don't agree with your reasoning here. How do you actually pronounce some of these Latin terms? I'm just going by a scholarly book on the subject that seems to be peer accepted.

Maybe we just speak "Orchid Board" Latin here.

I'm no latin scholar either, but to say Latin is Latin isn't entirely correct. I'm curious about all this and did some digging on the topic on wikipedia and other places. There are different types of Latin and each language has their approximation of the sounds and there are several accepted prunounciations (also because no one knows with absolute certainty the original prunounciation). Yes, a language is a language, but latin is a dead one, with no 'native' speakers to tell us the right way.
One thing that I'm certain about is that in France latin is taught with the ae = [ɛ] sound. So as far as I'm concerned, it as one of several correct prunounciations. ;)

Missmolly, I was actually more joking than being serious. But I am glad you stated that just so people wouldn't think I was serious. There are accepted was to pronounce certain words. They can be regional and country specific, just as much as accent and slang. To me, it's a wonderful quirk of a living language, and I find it interesting that this comes into play even with the use of a dead language.

Achille Finet. There are apparently a non-orchid genus named for him, and this was a "new" one - hence neofinetia - avoiding confusion.

Unfortunately "Classic" Latin (which I studied too), "Church" Latin, and botanical Latin are all different!

And with Camille trying to describe how a Frenchman would say a Latinized word tickles me.

Thanks Ray. I was thinking it would be Fine, in which case 'Fin - eh' would definitely be wrong.

Re French pronunciation... it's a long time since I did it, but I can confirm the t would not normally be pronounced, unless there's something after it. However I was always told to pronounce such extras as if they were part of what follows, which would make it 'fineh tiah' rather than 'finet iah'

And I guess it being a real name might make a difference to the pronunciation!

So how do people pronounce Cattleya?

The AOS says "CAT-lee-ah" but it seems everyone I hear pronounces it "Cat-lay-uh".

I say "Cat-lee-ah"

Cat-lee-ah
 

Great, that makes at least 2 of us, so I will keep pronouncing it that way.

hehe - my very first orchid book including pronunciations of some more popular genera, I'm sure I got it from there ;)

I'm for Cattley-a. After all it was named after a guy named Cattley.
On the subject of pronunciations, how do you guys pronounce capillipes as in Den. capillipes? To me it appears to be capill- ipes as opposed to cap- ill - opes.

Baz in Oz

Yes, I would think that the orchid genus name should follow the pronunciation of the surname Cattley. So is that surname pronounced "lay" or "lee"?

Caht lay uh
Stahyn hoe pay uh

In Crawford it's: Them thar cattle layerz ;)
Cattlelayer nukeyoulerr blue.:rofl: