Pronounce Sapindales

July 14, 2007 8:35 AM

Pronounce 'Sapindales'.

It's an order of flowering plants that includes maples, citrus fruits, and lots of other wonderful things. Now, if you were in a botany class, being taught in English, would you say it Latin style to rhyme with Spanish federales, or would you rhyme it with 'Chippendales'?

posted by gimonca to science & nature (7 comments total)

Answers.com says it rhymes with Spanish feliz
posted by MtDewd at 8:39 AM on July 14, 2007

um... that would be Latin American Spanish
posted by MtDewd at 8:41 AM on July 14, 2007

Totally guessing based only on things like "sword of Damocles" (and seeking to avoid terms like "long e"):

/sə 'pɪn də li:z/ - International Phonetic Alphabet key here.

Quick and dirty, with the strongest syllable capitalized: suh-PIN-duh-leez.
posted by mdonley at 8:49 AM on July 14, 2007

It's sap-in-DAY-leez (last two syllables just like the word dailies). Source: Webster's Third New International Dictionary, p. 2013.

Answers.com says it rhymes with Spanish feliz

This would give a pronunciation of "sap-in-deh-LEES," which is completely and utterly wrong. Don't believe everything you read on the internet.

Totally guessing

Why do people feel free to "totally guess" when it comes to language? If I see a computer question I know nothing about, I don't go into the thread and say cheerfully "Just guessing, but why don't you try kicking it?" Jesus.
posted by languagehat at 9:32 AM on July 14, 2007 [2 favorites]

OP: I stand corrected - go with languagehat.

(While I don't normally feel free to play willy-nilly with things like this, I couldn't find a pronunciation of the word in any of my dictionaries or in a five-minute internet hunt, so I guessed based on the assumption that the word might be equally hard to find in other sources. Unhelpful in the end but well-intentioned, and not as clumsy as may appear.)
posted by mdonley at 10:00 AM on July 14, 2007 [1 favorite]

(I'm also mildly interested in actual experiences in lecture halls, "in the wild", to complement the official pronunciation. Thanks.)
posted by gimonca at 10:36 AM on July 14, 2007

I too would be interested in actual experiences in lecture halls; I've discovered that working scientists often don't use dictionary pronunciations, and (in my opinion) the usage of working scientists should trump the dictionary version (because all that counts is the usage of the people who actually use the word, and dictionaries often take a long time catching up).
posted by languagehat at 12:27 PM on July 14, 2007