Cute, Bonnie! Your friend was being diplomatic:)

I am from the south and we say kla-Mat-is. We wont talk about other words...at present.

Zazinnia said:I am from the south and we say kla-Mat-is. We wont talk about other words...at present.

Exactly! But I kind of draw that out into kluh - MAAT us

I just call them clems. But if I was to use the full name it would be #2.

I used to have a job where they made you write in what was wrong with you when you used your sick leave. I found this to be an invasion of my privacy and so either used exotic diseases, made up words, or plant names for that blank on my timecard. The women in the office were amused by this and asked me when I once listed clematis as my problem, if that was a new STD. he he! We all pronounced it cleMATis.

Horntoad said: I came across this article on correct pronunciation that I thought was interesting.

http://www.jlhudsonseeds.net/P...

Great link, Jay! Thanks.

Wonderful thread, Bonnie. Thanks!

lauribob said:I used to have a job where they made you write in what was wrong with you when you used your sick leave. I found this to be an invasion of my privacy and so either used exotic diseases, made up words, or plant names for that blank on my timecard. The women in the office were amused by this and asked me when I once listed clematis as my problem, if that was a new STD. he he! We all pronounced it cleMATis.

One thing I do miss about that "other" site was that it had pronunciations for the Latin names. I don't know if that was done away with on ATP because people disagree over it anyway or what.

FYI, this Floridian doesn't grow Clematis but pronounces it #1. I'm not sure I've ever actually heard anyone say it so I must have learned it from the dictionary (or that other site).

Also, thanks for the Peony debate, too. I said it Pee-OH-knee until I heard my grandmother (who actually grows one) call it a PEE-oh-knee. She's West Virginian and they have a language all their own so I wasn't sure if she was saying it right either but my mom, a Pennsylvanian, confirmed the pronunciation. Glad to see the agreement on here. I kind of wanted to ask during Peony week but forgot about it. This is a fun thread!

lauribob said:I used to have a job where they made you write in what was wrong with you when you used your sick leave. I found this to be an invasion of my privacy and so either used exotic diseases, made up words, or plant names for that blank on my timecard. The women in the office were amused by this and asked me when I once listed clematis as my problem, if that was a new STD. he he! We all pronounced it cleMATis.

Lauri, now I have another reason I will not want talk about my "Clematis" out loud. TOOOOoooo funny!

I was born and I've lived in the south my entire 67 years and I've always pronounced it Cluh-Matt-iss. So I guess my way the southern pronunciation for #2 Kle-MAT-is ?

Born and raised southern here, too, Lin. Fine Gardening mag has a pronunciation guide and they list the preferred way as KLEM-muh-tis. I simply prefer #2.

Angie, KLEM-muh-tis sounds very foreign to my ears!

It's spelled Clematis which sounds like CLEM - AT - ISS to me.

For some reason, when I imagine the second pronunciation in my head, I hear it in an obnoxious Boston accent and I think that's ruining it for me. Also, I have a gifted IQ and one thing I've noticed is that since I was a child, the way I first learn to do something is the way I'll remember it forever. It is really hard to break me of something I learned the wrong way. I guess that's the downside of learning things on the first try! So I think that because CLEM-uh-tiss got in my head first, it's always going to sound "right" to me.

The one that sounds 'right' to you is the right one for you in most cases I think.... when it comes to plants anyway.

lauribob said:I used to have a job where they made you write in what was wrong with you when you used your sick leave. I found this to be an invasion of my privacy and so either used exotic diseases, made up words, or plant names for that blank on my timecard. The women in the office were amused by this and asked me when I once listed clematis as my problem, if that was a new STD. he he! We all pronounced it cleMATis.

That's cool, Lauri!

Like the kid in the novel who said he couldn't perform "because he just had an operation on his clavichord."

What fun thread! I am from Canada and now live in Texas and I say it #2, but then again everyone thinks I talk funny. I try to avoid saying anything except clem
My son also thinks the pronunciation is a STD

I took four years of Spanish in high school and I figure since it's based on Latin, I can pronounce Latin names as if they're Spanish words and be close enough. I've been to certain club meetings and botanical gardens and I hate when people get all condescending about how to pronounce Latin. I'm like, "Isn't it a dead language? Does anybody actually know how it sounded when people were alive to speak it?" I figure the Romance languages that are based on it give us the biggest clue, so I'm just going to keep saying everything like it's Spanish. I'm in Florida, anyway!

Interesting that some people are even more pedantic than scientists who spent an entire career learning to be agonizingly accurate.

if "pronounce it any way you like" is good enough for them, it's good enough for me.

I don't move in any circles where people correct my pronunciation (or pull out their egos and wave them in my face in other ways). If I did, I would print up some cards with the link that Horntoad posted.

I might also print on the card: "This link explains why the correct scientific pronunciation of all plant names is 'go bother someone else please, thank you very much'".

However, the regional differences in how names ARE pronounced is interesting.
Most interesting is the near-universal belief that there IS One True Correct Pronunciation for every name ... and how many people are sure that THEY know that One True Pronunciation, without knowing any "official source" or reason .

One lady once explained that principle to me online:
"You just have to remember that everyone ELSE is wrong!"


In high school, I was delighted with all the fancy names you could invent for organic chemicals. This thread reminded me of the answer I got when I asked how some of them "should" be pronounced. "Scientists mostly just read and write. There ARE correct spellings. There are NO correct pronunciations."

Horntoad said:

>> I came across this article on correct pronunciation that I thought was interesting.

>> http://www.jlhudsonseeds.net/P...

#2. accent on the second syllable.