Re: paleonet Re: Latin (written/pronounced)

["Robert L. Fleisher" <forams@xxxxxxxxx>]

I have a pronunciation question that doesn't seem to be fully addressed in the
link provided by Jere Lipps, and I don't have either of the books Roy Plotnick
mentions.  Perhaps somebody on the list can give me some guidance.  Basically,
it's always been my understanding that pronunciation of taxonomic names should,
to some high degree, honor the roots of the word.  The problem comes up when,
breaking the name into its roots, the pronunciation of one or both of the roots
differs from what you would expect for the single name.

My best example, and a friend and I have collected several of them, is
Archaeopteryx.  Customary, indeed virtually unanimous pronunciation, of course,
is Ar-kee-OP-ter-ix.  But the root words, as I understand it, are archaeo
(ancient) and pteryx (wing).  So it seems to me that the appropriate
pronunciation is  Ar-kee-o-TER-ix (which is, I gather, how the PT diphthong would
be pronounced in Latin--or in Pterodactyl).  It also has the advantage of
satisfying the "rule" that the accent should be on the second-to-last syllable in
words of more than two syllables.  Similarly, I would think that the genus of
large Silurian arthropods should be pronounced You-ree-TER-a, rather than
You-RIP-ter-a, and that the dinosaur named after Lambe should be pronounced
Lam(or Lamb)-o-SAWR-us, rather than Lam-bee-o-SAWR-us. All three fly completely
in the face of common usage, I realize, but the logic seems inescapable to
me--although not worth a crusade.

Opinions?

Bob Fleisher
Houston, TX