But doesn't everyone speak English?

["King, Norm" <nking.ucs@smtp.usi.edu>]

Adrianna Curutchet-Hunicken wrote (01/11/96; 1:16a)

>With due respect to everybody in this list.
>Since there is so many doubts and opinions about pronounciation and 
meaning
>of" Giganotosaurus Carolinii" why don't we ask the people at the 
University
>of Neuquen (Arg.) to explain it.
>My humble opinion, you must pronounce a foreign word using the rules of 
the
>foreign language. It is interesting that english speaking people tend to
>pronounce everything in English.
>I remember my german teacher telling me that germans don't pronounce
>Washington like Vaahshington because they know better!


Remember that these taxonomic names are LATIN.  Much of our debate has 
indeed been about how the Romans (and other speakers of Latin) would have 
pronounced the words.  I remember what my Latin teacher told me, but who 
told HIM?

In a way, I am a popularizer of paleontology.  Unfortunately, more than 
half of my public has never studied another language.  They only know 
English, and many of them ain't too good at that one.  So, of course, 
they pronounce everything as if it were English.  I'm just dealing as 
effectively as I can with the audience this society has presented me 
(with).  That's why I always seem so depressed.




When more than half of a people speak only english



*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Norman R. King                                       tel:  (812) 464-1794
Department of Geosciences                            fax:  (812) 464-1960
University of Southern Indiana
8600 University Blvd.
Evansville, IN 47712                      e-mail:  nking.ucs@smtp.usi.edu