weird words

Bringing this over here from my twitter feed and expanding it a little.

It all started when I realized that British English pronounces forsythia /fɔːˈsaɪθiə/ - like scythe in the middle. My own pronunciation was a mix of the British and the American version: /fərˈsɪθiə/ - the Star Wars Sith pronunciation I'd like to call it. What's your pronunciation like? I don't know whether I came up with my version of my own or whether I heard it in NZ or GB?

The German pronunciation of Forsythie - nearly the same word except for the last letter - is very different though: Phonetically we would spell it Forsützie, the more or less IPA version, taken from a German online dictionary is this: [fɔrˈzy:tsi̯ə] - a world away from the British version!


But then I thought of Fuchsie and fuchsia - same last letter difference again, also a very different pronunciation: German call it [ˈfʊksi̯ə], English-speaking folks say /ˈfjuːʃə/ - and as to spelling it, there is the tendency to turn it into fuschia.

So, we have a Scottish botanist William Forsyth and a flower named after him and a German botanist Leonhart Fuchs and a flower named after him. Naturally, we ignore the native pronunciation of the name and come up with our own. Which I am totally fine with, but it is a little confusing.

With Dahlie and dahlia, named after a Swedish botanist Anders Dahl, the German and American pronunciation are fairly close on the sound of the a (let's ignore the l and the fact that the IPA letters are the same, but the pronunciation isn't):
Dahlie = [ˈda:li̯ə]
dahlia = BrE /ˈdeɪliə/ AmE /ˈdɑːliə/
The Swedish pronunciation of the a is probably different again!

As to other flowers named after people, there is Poinsettia - which was the trigger for all this because of this language log post about its pronunciation and Bougainvillea.

Poinsettias are Weihnachtssterne in English, literally Christmas stars, which is the easy way out as far as mangling the name goes. Bougainvillea are named after a French general and explorer and here the German [buɡɛ̃ˈvilea]  is a little closer to the French version than the English /ˌbuːɡənˈvɪliə/ - which is lovely in its own way, I think.

Any other flowers named after people that come to mind?

Instead of ruins, I today bring you the main church of Lagos:

( Igreja Paroquial de Santa Maria de Lagos )

As is tradition around this time of year, we went on the motorway and visited family in Hesse. ( Text and pictures )

This time there we didn't go for the sights and while I had wanted to take the kid to the very famous castle, we of course didn't. You don't mess with tradition.

Edited for spelling picnic the German way.

In response to this post on languagelog about firstable as an eggcorn for first of all:


The version I've seen from several German students is firstival - which you can also find in the last comment on this blog post on first(ly) etc.

Finding authentic examples of this usage isn't easy but here are two:

Firstival what is true love what is being in love... Is there a difference?

Hello everyone, firstival i would like to say that my english is not evry good but i would like to share my experience of playing my little bunny here, so my apology if there r any misunderstandings.

Apparently it is not only used by ESL students as in this quote from a 'funny freshman essay':

Firstival, the president should…

I learned a new word. It appears to sound like “festival,” but is synonymous with “first of all”.

(As an aside: This current teacher isn't too fond of this former teacher poking fun at the ignorance of students and I'm also not completely sold on the authenticity of the quoted student writing.)

..nor has it pancakes.

Traditionally, it is called Violet Tuesday (after the flowers, not the colour).

This year, we went to the big parade in town and of course I took pictures.

It took me a while to crop and tinker, so that I can share some of them with you.

German Carnival is frequently a very serious thing, and often not very creative costumewise. I was pleasantly surprised regarding the outfits (helped by the motto) and see for yourself whether anyone had fun.

( Veilchendienstagszug )