Should I Move to Idaho Falls?

[Chimera]

I almost shortend your nickname to Chim-Chim (which is actually longer)

Ah, that's sweet.

But since the Greek pronunciation is actually a hard K sound--K-eye-mir-uh--I'm not sure how to work out that nickname. Something like K-eye-m K-eye-m?

(Obviously from my sounding out of the word I am not a linguist and just using familar sounds instead of the proper symbols. Just go with it.)

But Chim-Chim, as in Mary Poppins and "Chim chim cherie"--is kind of cute. Except for the fact that it does relate me to the afore mentioned Speed Racer monkey.  

[Archon]

Don't you feel so lucky to have a nickname that is a homophone for a the liquidy substance that food is reduced to in your digestive system?

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

Dropping that hard k sound in favor of a soft ch sound works for me Chim-Chim... I had a good buddy growing up named Charon... (using a ch sound)

[Chimera]

Don't you feel so lucky to have a nickname that is a homophone for a the liquidy substance that food is reduced to in your digestive system?

Thanks Archon, for pointing that out.

I have one word for you: EW!  

[The Jade Knight]

You know, it bothers me when people get bothered about the Americanization of word.

Just as "Melee" is pronoune "me - lee" ("maylay" is the pronunciation for "mêlée"), "Chimera" is pronouned "chim - er - uh".  If you want people to pronounce it the Greek way, spell it in Greek.

This is one of the reason you'll never find me using the word "fiancée" without the acute accent (or the extra e when referring to a woman, for that matter).

[Chimera]

"Chimera" is pronouned "chim - er - uh".  If you want people to pronounce it the Greek way, spell it in Greek.

No it's not. Not according to the dictionary (check out the cool pronunciation guide--I use it all the time). I mean, it's easy to think that is how it is pronounced, since the spelling of "chi" equaling the sound "ki" is not a normal English convention. But I think the dictionary gives the accepted way to pronounce it. This is coming from someone who constantly mispronounces words that I read before I heard.

Like faux. I thought it was pronounced "fox." So I wondered how people could tell the difference between a fox fur and a faux fur (both pronounced the same).  

[The Jade Knight]

"Faux" should be italicized, then.  I speak French so it doesn't give me any trouble at all, as it is spelled correctly.

The dictionary doesn't have "me lee" as a pronunciation for "melee", either.  Like you, the dictionary is prescriptivist.  =þ

I guess I'm more presciptivist when it comes to spelling, and you're more prescriptivist when it comes to pronunciation.  I mean, if you're that particular, why not require everyone to pronounce it with a "kh" sound?

Again, I'm all for anglicisation of words that we've anglicized the spelling for (this includes dropping accents), and all for spelling natively the words we don' anglicise.

[fuzzyoctopus]

Sorry Chimera, I'm with Jade Knight on this one.  Despite how it ought to be pronounced in Greek, Americans don't pronounce it that way.  I figure that while American English had Greek unconcious in a back alley and was going through its pockets for loose nouns, we dropped a couple and they started sounding all funny.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

plus the word has all sorts of word origin issues... you cant go from one language to another before ending up American english with out breaking a few eggs..

Middle English chimere, Chimera, from Old French, from Latin chimaera, from Greek khimaira, chimera, she-goat. See ghei- in Indo-European Roots.


I suspect though that Fell and E will pop blood vessels...

[stacer]

Do you guys really pronounce chimera with a ch sound instead of a hard k? I've never heard it pronounced that way. I pronounce it (and thus it is so ) ky-maer-uh. Like the dictionary. Long I, long A, schwa at the end.

[Chimera]

*Shrug* It doesn't really matter anyway. You say tomato, I say tomato (I'm not even going to try to sound out the difference--you've all heard the saying).

I guess I just really like the hard k sound in the name. Makes it cooler to me. And that's how my Greek Mythology professor pronounced it, so I just picked it up from him.

English has absorbed so many words from different languages there seems to be little consistency. It's not like Spanish where vowels and consonant combinations ALWAYS make the same sounds. And then if you get into dialects, you have people pronouncing words like creek and bag different based entirely on which side of the coast they are from.

I'm not so much a prescriptivist as being partly paranoid. I've been teased for pronouncing things wrong (all in good humor, of course) so I often check my pronounciation against the dictionary. It's my default.

But you all may pronounce it however you want.  

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

Yup, I like saying Chimera with a CH, even though I knew it was a k. My rational is that if the Brits can pronounce Belvoir as "Beaver" then Americans can do no wrong pronouncing foreign words.

[The Jade Knight]

I am well aware of the prescribed pronunciation, but I strongly prefer the "natural" pronunciation.

Were I to try to pronounce it the Greek way, I'd pronounce it "kh", not "k".

I mean, presciptivism is what landed us "island" with an s, which is moronic.

[fuzzyoctopus]

I just love a good prescriptivist/descriptivist argument and in Ohio I don't have anyone to argue with.

[Archon]

By the way Chimera, you're welcome.