Damn Pronunciation!!!

[Atlas]

So many annoying plant names which have interchangeable pronunciation.

How to say them for example

subaeruginosa (as it psilocybe) sub-airu-jin-osa? sub-a-rug-inosa? sub-air-ru-jinosa? subaru-ginosa!!

There heaps of these dickface words.

Erythroxylum took me a while just because its kind of tongue twisty - to many r's is sounds stupid, it should be erythoxlyum, or something.

Why can't they just call them Purple mushroomae, red mushroomae, purple with spots mushroomae.

[bℓσωηG]

damn latinese!

[Atlas]

sub-air-oo-gin-osa, sub air oo jin osa! suba-rug-ingosa

Edited May 24, 2010 by Atlas

[Atlas]

I wish it were just SUB-AR-INGOSA, makes much better sense

[Amazonian]

I look at it as... suba (like super), ru( like 'u' in rug) jeanie ( like 'i dream of jeanie') o ( pronounced as 'o' like in the alphabet) s, ( like ,s in the alphabet but with a slight 'z' sound to it) u ( pronounced as in um). Well that's the way i pronounce it. A lot of Latin names are tongue twisters. I learnt a lot of frog Latin names and everyone you spoke to,pronounced them different. You say castle, i say castle, tomato, tomato .Comprehendey??!

[occidentalis]

The etymology is:

SUB (as in, smaller than, or below)

AERUGINOSA (referring to another species, Psilocybe aeruginosa)

Aeruginose is a descriptive term referring to colour (greyish to olive blue-green or turquoise)

So P. subaeruginosa is a species that is smaller than (or perhaps has some anatomical feature smaller than) P. aeruginosa. Which was presumably so named because some part of it is aeruginose in colour.

it really helps if you break the latin names up into their component parts -

so with Erythroxylum - you get Erythro- (flame or fire) and xylum (wood)

Meaning it has red wood.

a good resource for pronunciation and etymology is http://davesgarden.com/guides/botanary/.

Edited May 24, 2010 by occidentalis