Memetic or splenetic?
May 28, 2009 4:18 PM Subscribe
What is the proper pronunciation of the word "meme"?
Best answer: Long E, rhymes with "seem" is what I have always heard.
posted by beandip at 4:19 PM on May 28, 2009
posted by beandip at 4:19 PM on May 28, 2009
Best answer: [miːm]
(same as what others have said above)
posted by iamkimiam at 4:22 PM on May 28, 2009 [1 favorite]
(same as what others have said above)
posted by iamkimiam at 4:22 PM on May 28, 2009 [1 favorite]
Just noticed your post title. Others may vary, but I pronounce memetic different than meme. For me, memetic is all lax vowels. In IPA, this would be [mɛmɛtɪk].
posted by iamkimiam at 4:25 PM on May 28, 2009
posted by iamkimiam at 4:25 PM on May 28, 2009
Response by poster: Thanks. This has definitely, and I would guess definitively, been answered now.
posted by Elmore at 4:27 PM on May 28, 2009
posted by Elmore at 4:27 PM on May 28, 2009
I've known at least one person who pronounced it "mimi." Is this a relatively common mistake?
posted by HumuloneRanger at 4:27 PM on May 28, 2009
posted by HumuloneRanger at 4:27 PM on May 28, 2009
Response by poster: This is why I asked. I have heard 'Meemee" too, and always thought it was wrong.
posted by Elmore at 4:31 PM on May 28, 2009
posted by Elmore at 4:31 PM on May 28, 2009
Response by poster: I guess they just don't know how to pronounce [mi:m] properly...
posted by Elmore at 4:33 PM on May 28, 2009
posted by Elmore at 4:33 PM on May 28, 2009
Maybe this is one of those things they don't seem to teach native English speakers, like the rule about when to use "more" or when to add "-er" to make adjectival comparisons (it's second nature to most people, I'd guess), but generally, the purpose of the silent "e" at the end of monosyllabic words is to turn the vowel sound into a long vowel sound.
Dan -> dane
met -> mete
tin -> tine
ton -> tone
dun -> dune
There are exceptions, but the nice thing about it is that this "rule" holds truer the more unusual a word is (in my experience.)
So by this rule (as others have agreed), "meme" would have a long "e" sound.
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 4:33 PM on May 28, 2009 [2 favorites]
Dan -> dane
met -> mete
tin -> tine
ton -> tone
dun -> dune
There are exceptions, but the nice thing about it is that this "rule" holds truer the more unusual a word is (in my experience.)
So by this rule (as others have agreed), "meme" would have a long "e" sound.
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 4:33 PM on May 28, 2009 [2 favorites]
I've alwayrs pronounced it like the word "Them" except with a "M" sound at the beginning, obviously.
posted by tylerfulltilt at 4:34 PM on May 28, 2009
posted by tylerfulltilt at 4:34 PM on May 28, 2009
"Meemee" would only make sense if the word were old enough to have just retained a funky spelling from something like a pronunciation shift, or if it were a straight borrowing from a language which commonly makes the long "e" sound with a simple "e." But the former isn't true, as the word was apparently introduced in 1976, and the latter isn't true as it's Greek-derived and you'd more likely see an "i" to express the long "e" sound. Can you tell I'm bored today?
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 4:37 PM on May 28, 2009
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 4:37 PM on May 28, 2009
I've heard mimi, but in my head it's pronounced to rhyme with the first syllable of chemistry - chem, meme... good question!
posted by firei at 4:38 PM on May 28, 2009
posted by firei at 4:38 PM on May 28, 2009
fete?
crepe?
I believe you'll find both those words to be French, Elmore.
posted by Serial Killer Slumber Party at 4:40 PM on May 28, 2009
crepe?
I believe you'll find both those words to be French, Elmore.
posted by Serial Killer Slumber Party at 4:40 PM on May 28, 2009
Both "fete" and "crepe" are recognizable French borrowings and thus privy to French pronunciation rules, not English ones. It's worth noting that in French, "meme" would be pronounced to rhyme with "stem." (And would also have a circumflex symbol over the first "e," as would "crepe" and "fete," which usually denotes a lost "s." As expressed by the fact that fete and feast and related.)
Of course, meme means "same" in French, so I wonder what their word for the English "meme" is.
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 4:40 PM on May 28, 2009
Of course, meme means "same" in French, so I wonder what their word for the English "meme" is.
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 4:40 PM on May 28, 2009
". . . fete and feast ARE related." Sorry.
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 4:41 PM on May 28, 2009
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 4:41 PM on May 28, 2009
"Meem".
Confusion arises possibly because it's derived from "meme" (pronounced mehm), which is French for "Same", such as in Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose - literally, "more that it change, more that it is the same thing".
Pre-internet, a meme was a philosophy term for thoughts/ideas that spread and grew from person to person via repetition; like the more you hear it said that "the more things change, the more they stay the same", the more you believe it and the more likely you are to repeat it and pass it on to others. See also "thought virus".
Now in internet time, a meme is something that gets picked up on and starts being copied, usually with variations; someone once captioned a cat photo with humorous babytalk, which became the LOLcat/LOLdog/etc. meme. This is different from something "going viral", which gets spread around but remains unchanged from the original.
posted by bartleby at 4:46 PM on May 28, 2009
Confusion arises possibly because it's derived from "meme" (pronounced mehm), which is French for "Same", such as in Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose - literally, "more that it change, more that it is the same thing".
Pre-internet, a meme was a philosophy term for thoughts/ideas that spread and grew from person to person via repetition; like the more you hear it said that "the more things change, the more they stay the same", the more you believe it and the more likely you are to repeat it and pass it on to others. See also "thought virus".
Now in internet time, a meme is something that gets picked up on and starts being copied, usually with variations; someone once captioned a cat photo with humorous babytalk, which became the LOLcat/LOLdog/etc. meme. This is different from something "going viral", which gets spread around but remains unchanged from the original.
posted by bartleby at 4:46 PM on May 28, 2009
Richard Dawkins coined the word "meme" to be analogous to "gene", with the analogous pronunciation (one syllable, long-e vowel sound). I don't have my copy of The Selfish Gene at hand; perhaps someone else has a copy and can verify this.
posted by madcaptenor at 4:55 PM on May 28, 2009 [2 favorites]
posted by madcaptenor at 4:55 PM on May 28, 2009 [2 favorites]
kdar's wikipedia link has the Selfish Gene quote: "We need a name for the new replicator, a noun that conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation. 'Mimeme' comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like 'gene'. [...] I abbreviate mimeme to meme. [...] it could alternatively be thought of as being related to 'memory', or to the French word même. It should be pronounced to rhyme with 'cream'."
posted by mbrubeck at 5:01 PM on May 28, 2009
posted by mbrubeck at 5:01 PM on May 28, 2009
If I heard someone say "meemee" I'd be laughing way too hard to correct them. Talk about the dangers of a reading vocabulary!
Meem, as others have said, but mimm-etic.
posted by rokusan at 5:28 PM on May 28, 2009 [1 favorite]
Meem, as others have said, but mimm-etic.
posted by rokusan at 5:28 PM on May 28, 2009 [1 favorite]
dammit! I've been pronouncing it mem-A (meh-may) all along. Thanks for making me look stupid, internets.
posted by spinturtle at 5:55 PM on May 28, 2009
posted by spinturtle at 5:55 PM on May 28, 2009
My friend used to say may-may which was a source of great amusement to me. But yeah, long e followed by a silent one.
posted by papayaninja at 6:23 PM on May 28, 2009
posted by papayaninja at 6:23 PM on May 28, 2009
People have offered fancy reasons why someone might pronounce it wrong. Here's the very not-fancy reason that it took me a while to figure out the correct pronunciation:
When I first saw it in terms of internet memes, I didn't realize it was an existing word that related to the word "gene." At that point I saw it refer mostly to things like surveys or quizzes, the answers or results of which you would post to your livejournal or something. Or some silly joke that you would co-opt. So I thought it was pronounced "mee-mee" as in "Me! Me!" I had no reason to question this because it made total sense to me. It seemed like a very descriptive term for what it was (on the internet, anyway).
I actually don't remember what led me to realize what the real spelling was, but I figured it out eventually, somehow.
posted by lampoil at 6:42 PM on May 28, 2009 [1 favorite]
When I first saw it in terms of internet memes, I didn't realize it was an existing word that related to the word "gene." At that point I saw it refer mostly to things like surveys or quizzes, the answers or results of which you would post to your livejournal or something. Or some silly joke that you would co-opt. So I thought it was pronounced "mee-mee" as in "Me! Me!" I had no reason to question this because it made total sense to me. It seemed like a very descriptive term for what it was (on the internet, anyway).
I actually don't remember what led me to realize what the real spelling was, but I figured it out eventually, somehow.
posted by lampoil at 6:42 PM on May 28, 2009 [1 favorite]
Dee Xtrovert: "12Maybe this is one of those things they don't seem to teach native English speakers, like the rule about when to use "more" or when to add "-er" to make adjectival comparisons (it's second nature to most people, I'd guess), but generally, the purpose of the silent "e" at the end of monosyllabic words is to turn the vowel sound into a long vowel sound."
Just a quick clarification (and sorry if I'm splitting hairs here). It's not the purpose of the long "e" to turn the vowel sound into a long vowel sound, but rather a series of changes occurred whereby the words with 'e's at the end tend to correlate with words that have long vowel sounds.
Long explanation: This is because the 'e' used to be pronounced in Middle English. And as such, words like 'tine', 'mete', etc. were disyllabic (having two syllables), with the first syllable being an 'open' syllable (not ending in a consonant). They would likely be pronounced [ti.ne] and [me.te], which you can see, reflects the spelling we have for these words.
During this time (Middle English), an occurrence called "open syllable lengthening" was happening also, whereby vowels in open, stressed syllables ('ti' of 'tine', 'me' of 'mete') became longer, resulting in [tiː.ne] and [meː.te]. Then the printing press came to England, and mass distribution of texts and interest in language documentation preserved the spelling system, which is what we have today, 'tine' and 'mete'.
Which sucks, because then the Great Vowel Shift came along shortly after (Early Modern English), changing the pronunciation of just about everything. The Great Vowel Shift however, ONLY applied to long vowels, and it raised and shortened them, so [tiː.ne] → [tai.ne] and [meː.te] → [mi.te]. The 'e' at the ends of words stopped being pronounced as well, resulting in today's pronunciation, [tain] and [mit].
Words like 'met', 'tin', and 'ton' are monosyllabic, and closed (ending in a consonant). So their vowels would have never undergone Open Syllable Lengthening (in fact, they underwent Closed Syllable Shortening instead), and without being long vowels, they would have never been subject to the Great Vowel Shift either.
Long story short, words ending in 'e' went down a very different road than words not ending in 'e'. Their evolutions are completely different, and their processes are only related in so much as in they are in complementary distribution. The fact that the English spelling system was crystallized right in the middle of it all is truly unfortunate, as it causes much confusion. The saving grace of it all is that with so much dialectical variation in the English language, and none of them reflecting the spelling system, the system itself does not give preference to one dialect over another, and thereby evens the playing field somewhat. In other words, it's a crappy thing for everybody to untangle.
posted by iamkimiam at 6:58 PM on May 28, 2009 [6 favorites]
Just a quick clarification (and sorry if I'm splitting hairs here). It's not the purpose of the long "e" to turn the vowel sound into a long vowel sound, but rather a series of changes occurred whereby the words with 'e's at the end tend to correlate with words that have long vowel sounds.
Long explanation: This is because the 'e' used to be pronounced in Middle English. And as such, words like 'tine', 'mete', etc. were disyllabic (having two syllables), with the first syllable being an 'open' syllable (not ending in a consonant). They would likely be pronounced [ti.ne] and [me.te], which you can see, reflects the spelling we have for these words.
During this time (Middle English), an occurrence called "open syllable lengthening" was happening also, whereby vowels in open, stressed syllables ('ti' of 'tine', 'me' of 'mete') became longer, resulting in [tiː.ne] and [meː.te]. Then the printing press came to England, and mass distribution of texts and interest in language documentation preserved the spelling system, which is what we have today, 'tine' and 'mete'.
Which sucks, because then the Great Vowel Shift came along shortly after (Early Modern English), changing the pronunciation of just about everything. The Great Vowel Shift however, ONLY applied to long vowels, and it raised and shortened them, so [tiː.ne] → [tai.ne] and [meː.te] → [mi.te]. The 'e' at the ends of words stopped being pronounced as well, resulting in today's pronunciation, [tain] and [mit].
Words like 'met', 'tin', and 'ton' are monosyllabic, and closed (ending in a consonant). So their vowels would have never undergone Open Syllable Lengthening (in fact, they underwent Closed Syllable Shortening instead), and without being long vowels, they would have never been subject to the Great Vowel Shift either.
Long story short, words ending in 'e' went down a very different road than words not ending in 'e'. Their evolutions are completely different, and their processes are only related in so much as in they are in complementary distribution. The fact that the English spelling system was crystallized right in the middle of it all is truly unfortunate, as it causes much confusion. The saving grace of it all is that with so much dialectical variation in the English language, and none of them reflecting the spelling system, the system itself does not give preference to one dialect over another, and thereby evens the playing field somewhat. In other words, it's a crappy thing for everybody to untangle.
posted by iamkimiam at 6:58 PM on May 28, 2009 [6 favorites]
meme rhymes with them.
posted by metastability at 7:37 PM on May 28, 2009
posted by metastability at 7:37 PM on May 28, 2009
no it doesn't. It rhymes with theme.
posted by Happydaz at 7:56 PM on May 28, 2009 [2 favorites]
posted by Happydaz at 7:56 PM on May 28, 2009 [2 favorites]
I had it rhyming with them, but I also say drawer and it rhymes with war. Thanks for the question.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 8:02 PM on May 28, 2009
posted by JohnnyGunn at 8:02 PM on May 28, 2009
lampoil: So I thought it was pronounced "mee-mee" as in "Me! Me!" I had no reason to question this because it made total sense to me.
I kind of like this idea. Maybe the thing that Dawkins actually meant should be pronounced to rhyme with "cream", and the stupid Internet quizzes should be pronounced "me! me!" That way we could tell them apart.
Except, well, it wouldn't work in writing.
I've also seen meme in the Internet quiz/LOLcat/etc. sense spelled "MeMe", so you're not alone in assuming this etymology.
posted by madcaptenor at 8:03 PM on May 28, 2009
I kind of like this idea. Maybe the thing that Dawkins actually meant should be pronounced to rhyme with "cream", and the stupid Internet quizzes should be pronounced "me! me!" That way we could tell them apart.
Except, well, it wouldn't work in writing.
I've also seen meme in the Internet quiz/LOLcat/etc. sense spelled "MeMe", so you're not alone in assuming this etymology.
posted by madcaptenor at 8:03 PM on May 28, 2009
Just a quick clarification (and sorry if I'm splitting hairs here). It's not the purpose of the long "e" to turn the vowel sound into a long vowel sound, but rather a series of changes occurred whereby the words with 'e's at the end tend to correlate with words that have long vowel sounds.
That was poor wording on my part. I understand and know the history that you mention; what I intended to make clear was that one could read the purpose of that final "e" as existing to make the earlier vowel sound long, as it now is a sort of de facto "rule" with newly-coined words. It's modeling, of course, but that makes it no less true. "Meme" is of course an obvious example. "Plebe," which is less than two hundred years old, would be another. I thought of several more . . . then the phone rang and I forgot them! But one sees examples purposefully formed this was quite often in product or company names - "drane" instead of "drain," for example.
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 8:20 PM on May 28, 2009
That was poor wording on my part. I understand and know the history that you mention; what I intended to make clear was that one could read the purpose of that final "e" as existing to make the earlier vowel sound long, as it now is a sort of de facto "rule" with newly-coined words. It's modeling, of course, but that makes it no less true. "Meme" is of course an obvious example. "Plebe," which is less than two hundred years old, would be another. I thought of several more . . . then the phone rang and I forgot them! But one sees examples purposefully formed this was quite often in product or company names - "drane" instead of "drain," for example.
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 8:20 PM on May 28, 2009
meme = MEEM
memetic(s) = meh-MEH-tik(s)
One way to think of it is that memes are ideas that spread like heritable traits -- thus the words "meme", "memetic", and "memetics" both sound and function like the words "gene", "genetic", and "genetics".
posted by Rhaomi at 8:29 PM on May 28, 2009 [1 favorite]
memetic(s) = meh-MEH-tik(s)
One way to think of it is that memes are ideas that spread like heritable traits -- thus the words "meme", "memetic", and "memetics" both sound and function like the words "gene", "genetic", and "genetics".
posted by Rhaomi at 8:29 PM on May 28, 2009 [1 favorite]
Maybe this is one of those things they don't seem to teach native English speakers
I was certainly taught about magic E.
posted by permafrost at 5:04 AM on May 29, 2009
I was certainly taught about magic E.
posted by permafrost at 5:04 AM on May 29, 2009
I really thought it was "me-me"
posted by LittleMissItneg at 6:31 AM on May 29, 2009
posted by LittleMissItneg at 6:31 AM on May 29, 2009
I heard on a SXSW panel that a lot of people who joined the Internet later associated the word meme with quizzes, 25 things, etc and so assumed it was pronounced "me-me" since the quizzes/surveys are all about "me".
posted by theRussian at 7:19 AM on May 29, 2009
posted by theRussian at 7:19 AM on May 29, 2009
Also, from the OED Online:
Brit. /miːm/, U.S. /mim/ [Shortened mimeme (see quot. 19761 at main sense) that which is imitated (to imitate: seeMIMESIS n.), after GENE n.1]
1976 R. DAWKINS Selfish Gene xi. 206 The new soup is the soup of human culture. We need a name for the new replicator, a noun which conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation. ‘Mimeme’ comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like ‘gene’. I hope my classicist friends will forgive me if I abbreviate mimeme to meme... It should be pronounced to rhyme with ‘cream’. Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. 1976 New Scientist 9 Dec. 619/2 A rational person who hasn't acquired any variety of the God meme described by Richard Dawkins. 1986 Canad. Jrnl. Zool. 64 1576 Congruence of the patterns of morphometric and cultural evolution in these islands suggests..that the differentiation has been influenced by a colonization history involving restricted gene and meme flow between archipelagos, subsequent drift, and possibly founder effects. 1993 Wired Feb. 132/2 I'm not sure what happens to such a culture when radical Maoism is replaced by the far more seductive meme of Western consumer culture. 1998 D. BRIN Heaven's Reach 27 On all other dimensional planes, memes could only exist as parasites, dwelling in the host brains or mental processes of physical beings.
posted by iamkimiam at 8:19 AM on May 29, 2009
Brit. /miːm/, U.S. /mim/ [Shortened mimeme (see quot. 19761 at main sense) that which is imitated (to imitate: see
1976 R. DAWKINS Selfish Gene xi. 206 The new soup is the soup of human culture. We need a name for the new replicator, a noun which conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation. ‘Mimeme’ comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like ‘gene’. I hope my classicist friends will forgive me if I abbreviate mimeme to meme... It should be pronounced to rhyme with ‘cream’. Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. 1976 New Scientist 9 Dec. 619/2 A rational person who hasn't acquired any variety of the God meme described by Richard Dawkins. 1986 Canad. Jrnl. Zool. 64 1576 Congruence of the patterns of morphometric and cultural evolution in these islands suggests..that the differentiation has been influenced by a colonization history involving restricted gene and meme flow between archipelagos, subsequent drift, and possibly founder effects. 1993 Wired Feb. 132/2 I'm not sure what happens to such a culture when radical Maoism is replaced by the far more seductive meme of Western consumer culture. 1998 D. BRIN Heaven's Reach 27 On all other dimensional planes, memes could only exist as parasites, dwelling in the host brains or mental processes of physical beings.
posted by iamkimiam at 8:19 AM on May 29, 2009
lampoil: So I thought it was pronounced "mee-mee" as in "Me! Me!" I had no reason to question this because it made total sense to me.
Huh. I always thought it was mee-mee too.
posted by Bunglegirl at 8:33 AM on May 29, 2009
Huh. I always thought it was mee-mee too.
posted by Bunglegirl at 8:33 AM on May 29, 2009
This is an awesome example of folk etymology. I love it!
I also wonder how many of these technology-related words we can come up with, and whether or not their pronunciation variations are due to the fact that oftentimes the words are read online more often than they are heard.
posted by iamkimiam at 8:44 AM on May 29, 2009
I also wonder how many of these technology-related words we can come up with, and whether or not their pronunciation variations are due to the fact that oftentimes the words are read online more often than they are heard.
posted by iamkimiam at 8:44 AM on May 29, 2009
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by EatTheWeek at 4:19 PM on May 28, 2009