I had to take/make a decision on how to hyphenate the title of this post--it could have been
@jaynefox requested this one as a Twitter 'Difference of the Day', but since it's been a month since my last post (shock! horror! marking/grading!), I'm easing myself back into blogging with something that can't get too out-of-hand, I hope.
So why do we have different words for going in a circle as if going backward(s) on a clock? The earliest instance of clockwise in the OED is from 1888 (and it's clock-wise, adding all sorts of hyphenation possibilities). This tells us that its opposite is a good bet for transatlantic differences: the British colonists could not have taken it to America, so each nation was free to come up with its own version. It's not so clear that their origins really were in different countries, though.
The OED's first instance of counter-clockwise is in the same quote as the clock-wise one, from the Times (of London). Their first for anti-clockwise is from 1898. But should we trust the OED on this one? Probably not. These entries have not been updated in a long, long time and the OED's use of American sources was pretty limited in the early years.
Merriam-Webster has a first attestation date of 1879 for anticlockwise, but doesn't give the source. Its counter-clockwise date is also 1888.
So, I've turned to Google Books. Do you know what? Google Books is a pain. Search for counterclockwise in 19th century books, and you'll find that a lot of books that Google Books thinks were published in the 19th century weren't. So, searching 12 pages into the results, I've found a few cases of counter(-)clock(-)wise antedating:
So, anti-clockwise is looking mostly British, but counterclockwise seems to have been used in England as early as it was being used in the US. No obvious first coinage here, so we can't tell a tale of different national origins. All we can say is that anti-clockwise never caught on in the US, and counterclockwise quickly fell out of favo(u)r in the UK.
Oh, I suppose I can't leave without saying something about pronunciation. In BrE the second syllable of anti-clockwise is pronounced like tea. Americans often (but not always) pronounce anti- with a second syllable like tie, which can help in distinguishing it from ante-. Some discussion of the variation in AmE pronunciation of anti- can be found here. For me, it's partly on a word-by-word basis: 'tea' in anticlimax, but 'tie' in anti-Communist. I think if I form a new word with it (say, if I'm anti-pigeon), I'd pretty regularly use 'tie'. But that's what I think. And we're all pretty bad rememberers of what we do say and we're often bad judges of what we would say. So, unless someone records me unawares saying antipigeon, we may never know...
anti-clockwise and counter-clockwisebut I went with (BrE) anti-clockwise and (AmE) counterclockwise because, as we've seen before, Americans are a bit more apt to close up prefixed words when given the chance to.
anticlockwise and counter-clockwise
or
anticlockwise and counterclockwise
@jaynefox requested this one as a Twitter 'Difference of the Day', but since it's been a month since my last post (shock! horror! marking/grading!), I'm easing myself back into blogging with something that can't get too out-of-hand, I hope.
So why do we have different words for going in a circle as if going backward(s) on a clock? The earliest instance of clockwise in the OED is from 1888 (and it's clock-wise, adding all sorts of hyphenation possibilities). This tells us that its opposite is a good bet for transatlantic differences: the British colonists could not have taken it to America, so each nation was free to come up with its own version. It's not so clear that their origins really were in different countries, though.
The OED's first instance of counter-clockwise is in the same quote as the clock-wise one, from the Times (of London). Their first for anti-clockwise is from 1898. But should we trust the OED on this one? Probably not. These entries have not been updated in a long, long time and the OED's use of American sources was pretty limited in the early years.
Merriam-Webster has a first attestation date of 1879 for anticlockwise, but doesn't give the source. Its counter-clockwise date is also 1888.
So, I've turned to Google Books. Do you know what? Google Books is a pain. Search for counterclockwise in 19th century books, and you'll find that a lot of books that Google Books thinks were published in the 19th century weren't. So, searching 12 pages into the results, I've found a few cases of counter(-)clock(-)wise antedating:
- 1882 in Uniplanar Kinematics of Solids and Fluids by George Minchin, an Irish-born scientist in London.
- 1882 in The Civil Engineer's Reference-book by Pennsylvanian John Trautwine
- 1883 in Pamphlets on Biology (can't tell where it's published)
So, anti-clockwise is looking mostly British, but counterclockwise seems to have been used in England as early as it was being used in the US. No obvious first coinage here, so we can't tell a tale of different national origins. All we can say is that anti-clockwise never caught on in the US, and counterclockwise quickly fell out of favo(u)r in the UK.
Oh, I suppose I can't leave without saying something about pronunciation. In BrE the second syllable of anti-clockwise is pronounced like tea. Americans often (but not always) pronounce anti- with a second syllable like tie, which can help in distinguishing it from ante-. Some discussion of the variation in AmE pronunciation of anti- can be found here. For me, it's partly on a word-by-word basis: 'tea' in anticlimax, but 'tie' in anti-Communist. I think if I form a new word with it (say, if I'm anti-pigeon), I'd pretty regularly use 'tie'. But that's what I think. And we're all pretty bad rememberers of what we do say and we're often bad judges of what we would say. So, unless someone records me unawares saying antipigeon, we may never know...
Posts
The older word for anti-clockwise is widdershins.
ReplyDeleteWith John Cowan (previous comment), I'd also like to ask about "widdershins", a word I've seen in fantasy novels and occasionally use (I am a mathematical physicist; directions matter) as an affectation, but have never heard. Wikipedia only provides that OED attests it from 1513, that it has cognates in German and Lowland Scots, and that it plays an important role in magick and superstition.
ReplyDeleteTo my American ear, "anti-X" with the "ti" pronounced "tie" sounds like a position or opinion: "anti-pigeon" means that the person (or organization, or...) tries to kill those winged rats who live in New York City. Perhaps it's again a mathematics/physics thing, but an "antipigeon", with "ti" pronounced "tea", is a noun, and refer to the thing that is opposite in some mathematical sense to pigeons. The hyphenation also affects how I imagine that I pronounce the word.
In formal physics/mathematics literature, I seem to *never* see "counter-clockwise" - when referring for instance to particle spin. Perhaps this is emphasizing the "opposite-" sense of the word? Or because it is similar to other "anti-matter"?
DeleteIndeed, if one is talking about CPT symmetry it makes particular sense. But I have never seen either with reference to "time". Aside from Star Trek that is - "anti-time" in the TNG finale, and "The Counter-clock Incident" in the non-canon Animated series.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI would say that the second syllable in my British pronunciation is neither like tie nor like tea. Both these words are stressed. The -ty word-fragment is unstressed.
ReplyDeleteIt's the difference between hot tea and hotty.
The phonetician John Wells dubbed it the happY vowel.
Consider this mad exchange from Tom Stoppard's play Travesties. A senile ex-diplomat Henry Carr misremembers a conversation (in the distant past) as if had been carried out in limericks.
James Joyce is trying to get money from Her Majesty's Government funds, while the Dadaist poet Tristan Tzara sounds off against cultural orthodoxy
...
JOYCE: And a couple of pounds till I'm paid.
CARR: I don't see why not. For my part
.............H.M.G. is considered pro-Art.
TZARA: Consider me anti.
GWEN: Consider your auntie?
JOYCE: A pound would do for a start.
The sequence ends as Carr finally thinks of an example of British culture
CARR: By Jove, I've got it! Iolanthe!
TZARA: Obscene!
CARR: ................. Is it?
TZARA: ..........................Avanti!
..............Gut'n Tag! Adios!
GWEN: Au revoir!
TZARA: .................Vamanos!
BENNETT: Give my regards to your auntie.
Anti rhymes with panty. It also rhymes with the way some Brits pronounce auntie, and the way many of us pronounce Italian avanti. And it almost rhymes with Iolanthe (the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta).
I may be speaking only for myself, but I think that BrE associates counter- with opposing movement (or metaphorical movement):
ReplyDeleteCounter-Reformation, counter-insurgency, counter-attack, counter-claim, counter-revolution, counterbalance.
Whereas anti-clockwise movement is merely in a different direction. It's not as if we're forcing the hands of the clock to go the other way.
Yes I know that an antithesis is put forward in opposition to a thesis, but that compound was composed in Greek, not in English.
I wonder what will happen to our terms for rotational direction now that so many young people can no longer tell time with an analog clock. Will we come up with new terms that make more sense to future generations? Lefty-loosey / righty-tighty? Southern Hemisphere water going down the drain / Northern Hemisphere water going down the drain?
ReplyDeleteAnd, of course, to go with widdershins, deosil for sunways, or clockwise.
ReplyDeleteI've both heard and used widdershins and deosil although perhaps they're not really everyday English (BrE) but they're alive and well in some circles. I guess that makes them jargon.
And is deosil related to the cryptic thrice-repeated opening words of the almost impenetrable Oxen of the Sun chapter of Ulysses, Deshil Holles Eamus? In my own Idiot's Guide to Ulysses, as yet unpublished and I'm still wondering if it's worthwhile, I didn't consider chirality. My superficial research seemed to indicate deshil was a Gaelic word for street.
ReplyDeleteLet us go to Holles Street, thricely and in a strange mixture of Gaelic and Latin. There, at numbers 29, 30 and 31, we find ( and can still find) the National Maternity Hospital.
But of course, this is an evening in June and I now see I see that there's a sense of going towards the setting sun, westwards. I shall revive this formerly moribund project and revise it!
enitharmon
ReplyDeleteAnd is deosil related to the cryptic thrice-repeated opening words of the almost impenetrable Oxen of the Sun chapter of Ulysses, Deshil Holles Eamus?
Harry Blamires in The Bloomsday Book understands the word in its more basic Irish meaning 'southward'. Thus Let's go south to Holles Street.
The OED has an entry deasil | deiseal, adv. and n. with only the 'clockwise' meaning. The quotes are from Scottish writers — except that WH Auden used it with the spelling deisal.
The Old Irish root meant 'right' (an etymological cousin of Latin dexter). So
• with one right turn you go south
• with repeated right turns you go clockwise
Not common usage, but I've seen "widdershins" used in two very disparate venues.
ReplyDeleteOne is in neo-pagan circles. I think this is connected to their wish to link their beliefs and practices to ancient, pre-Christian culture.
The other is in a talk by a Scottish phonetician. He doesn't strike me as the affectation type. I'd put it down to his non-academic linguistic background, because I haven't seen anyone else in the field use that term.
I honestly don't know about Ulysses - I will simply say it's not my cup of tea.
ReplyDeleteWiddershins crops up in a range of other places from children's books to fantasy settings to others. I think my first exposure to deosil was in the same too. I can't remember the book's title now, but some children are on holiday in Cornwall, befriend a dragon and dance around a rocky outcrop on a beach noting its resemblance to a witch. As they dance the rock becomes more witch-like and the dragon rescues them, scolding them for dancing widdershins rather than deosil. It might be out of print now, I'd have read it well over 40 years ago but it probably my first exposure to the words.
In Irish 'deis' means 'right, right hand' and 'deisceart' means 'south'. 'Ceart' means 'right' as in 'right to vote', and also 'correct', and is present in the word for 'north', 'tuaisceart', too. So there's a whole stew of associations for you to digest.
ReplyDelete@Diane -- the story about water going down the drain in different directions in each hemisphere, is a myth.
ReplyDeleteTo my American ears, counter- makes more compositional sense than anti- (not that that matters much, I wouldn't use the -wise suffix either). Anti- to me conjures up hostility toward something. To take one of your examples, an anti-communist is not the opposite of a communist (necessarily), but is against the idea of communist. While counter- can mean something like that too (counterculture), it's more of a "moving in the opposite direction" thing (counterrevolution). And no, nobody asked me when they coined the word "antimatter".
ReplyDeleteI've heard both counter-clockwise and anti-clockwise used in BrE. I prefer the latter, but that could actually be a function of age? Often younger people here use what I consider American usages without realising that is what they are doing.
ReplyDeleteWhen reading, I almost always hear "anti-" with the "tea" ending through my mind's ear. Context doesn't seem to matter. I only know this for sure because I once had a teacher who tried to change my verbal pronunciation, and I spend years being annoyed that her "correction" never took.
ReplyDeleteI know there must be (are without a doubt, actually) a couple, but at the moment I can't think of a single word or context where the "tie" ending is my usual pronunciation.
Anonymous (as always) in New Jersey
Thanks for this!
ReplyDeleteMy wife and I noticed this while vacationing in the UK in June when her phone, with a UK SIM in it, suddenly started using BRE terms and instructed us to go "anti-clockwise" - which caught us a bit off-guard.
As for the pronunciation of "anti" - as a yank, I can't really think of a word where I commonly say "an-TEA" unless it's a word or phrase that I was introduced to by a Brit (I can't even imagine saying an-TIE clockwise, but I can't imagine saying an-TEA disestablishmentarianism, and it was always an-TIE matter in Star Trek, right?).
RumDood
ReplyDeleteit was always an-TIE matter in Star Trek, right?
Was it? I honestly never noticed. It's the sort of difference that you unconsciously translate.
Personally, I say neither anTIEmatter not anTEAmatter but ANtimmatter.
So that's what I heard in Star Trek.
Personally I say neither anTIEmatter not anTEAmatter but ANtimmatter.
ReplyDeleteMy vowel in the second syllable of antimatter is a 'short I' — also known as the KIT vowel.
In my accent, but not in posh old-fashioned English-of-England accents, this is different from the happY vowel — as in panty — which I personally use in many anti- words.
I've worked out that
1. I use the panty rhyme when anti- is an obvious prefix attached to an English word which carries a stress — such as CLOCK-wise.
2. I use the KIT vowel when anti- carries stress — as in ANT-ih-matter, ANT-ih-christ, ANT-i-dote.
3. I also use the KIT vowel in the small number of words where it carries the stress — as in an-TIPP-athy, an-TITH-esis, an-TIFF-phony.
These words don't feel like compounds — although they do come from the Greek ἀντί (in a Greek compound or in an international word based on Greek). They feel like those other words with the anti spelling that do not involve the prefix. — such as an-TISS-cipate, an-TICK-quity.
As an American, I'm fairly sure I've reverted to anti- pronounced an-tea in most situations, including anti-communist. But I can't swear it isn't a result either of age or of some kind of cultural shift -- the phrase "anti-communist" doesn't get much play anymore.
ReplyDeleteIt may be irrelevant, but Americans tend to pronounce Iraq either with a long i or a short i. I consider pronouncing it with a long i to be a bit parochial (alas, I can hear George Bush pronouncing it that way), so I'm wondering whether Iraq's unhappy presence in American discourse over the last decade could have skewed my pronunciation of anti- as a suffix ... and led me away from the long i.
In British English, Iraq is always pronounced with a short "I" and usually with a long "a". Do I mean a long a? I mean an "ah" sort of sound, and that syllable is accented. I jumped the first time I heard an American person on television calling it Eye-rack!
ReplyDeleteFor me, all "anti" words are pronounced with a short i, and many have the stress on the "ang" part. Obvious exceptions are words like antithesis, as has already been mentioned. Otherwise, it is like an insect- or relation-ridden picnic ("anty", of course!)
Is the US-UK variation in the pronunciation of the -i- vowel of anti- also found in (1) semi- (2) multi- or (3) quasi- ?
ReplyDeleteMy feeling is that the answers are (1) yes (2) not so much; Americans sometimes have eye but usually ee, Brits always ee (3) no; both eye and ee are common in both US and UK.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteMollymooly
ReplyDeleteBrits always ee (3)
Not always. Some of us still use the old-fashioned KWAY-ZIGH.
BTW: Merriam-Webster online defines widdershins (and displays a variant, spelled withershins) as "in a left-handed, wrong, or contrary direction" and gives counterclockwise as a synonym. Which I find a little peculiar, since whether you happen to say counterclockwise or anticlockwise I doubt it's ever to point out a direction you find wrong or contrary. Of course, since Merriam-Webster shows the origins as "Middle Low German weddersinnes, from Middle High German widersinnes, from widersinnen to go against", it isn't hard to conclude that widdershins, unlike anti- or counter-clockwise, is a word that predates (and was used well outside the bounds of) the scientific or industrial revolution.
ReplyDeleteThe OED treats widdershins | widdershins as having two senses. Both are found in texts from the sixteenth century. No sign of it in Old or Early Middle English — they reckon it's from Middle Low German.
ReplyDelete†1. In a direction opposite to the usual; the wrong way; to stand or start withershins , (of the hair) to ‘stand on end’. Obs.
The earliest quote with start widdershins is the earliest recorded example — in a Middle Scots literary translation
2. In a direction contrary to the apparent course of the sun (considered as unlucky or causing disaster).
The earliest quotes involve witchcraft, and some involve bad luck. But several quotes are as neutrally descriptive as anti-clockwise.
People observed the progress of the sun long before the Industrial revolution. And it was followed on measuring apparatus — in the form of sundials.
Both senses are described as dialect and chiefly Scots.
Mrs Redboots
ReplyDeleteDo I mean a long a?
Yes and no.
That sound does correspond to letter A in many languages, and in some of them it's a long variant distinct from a short one.
Once upon a time, English was such a language, but then all the sounds changed drastically — the so-called Great Vowel Shift. But this happened after English spelling was basically fixed. So historic English long a is now the sound in FACE.
Many of us use the term long a for the FACE vowel because we were taught it in primary school to explain mat vs mate, matting vs mating.
Others use long a for that other sound, the way the term is used to describe the sounds of other languages. There is a term broad a, but I'm not sure that it's popular nowadays.
In many cases my favoured term would be the BATH vowel. This allows for Norther English pronunciation of Iraq with a 'short a'. For words which have that sound in all accents I'd use the term the PALM vowel.
PS
By the same token, the first vowel of Iraq can be described in terms of
EITHER
1 short i ( as you and I pronounce it)
OR
2 long i aka the PRICE vowel (as some Americans pronounce it)
A full set of words like FACE and PRICE use to described vowels can be seen at the Wikideia entry for Lexical sets.
Thanks, David.
ReplyDeleteComing late to this discussion, but my first thought on reading the blog entry was that I pronounce the 'i' in 'anti' as in 'bit', not as in 'tea'.
ReplyDeleteI'm familiar with 'widdershins', probably from children's stories originally, but not with 'deosil'.
@David Crosbie: "Brits always ee" relates to "(2) multi", not "(3) quasi-"
ReplyDelete..."the story about water going down the drain in different directions in each hemisphere, is a myth."
ReplyDeleteBut is it true?
Little Black Sambo
ReplyDeleteClick here and try it for yourself.
@David Crosbie:
ReplyDeleteSome of us still use the old-fashioned KWAY-ZIGH.
I bet you don't say KWAY-ZIGH-moh-doh though.
On the topic of Iraq, it seems some people in the US (including our president) pronounce Iraq and Iran with different vowels (ee-rah vs. eye-ra) even when mentioning both one right after the other. I don't recall which is which, though.
ReplyDeleteThey sound almost interchangeable in my lexicon, although I think I prefer "ee-rahn" for Iran slightly. I would certainly say them both the same way in the same sentence, though.
@Boris Zakharin, I also prefer "ee-rahn"; however, that's because a former Iranian-American colleague always pronounced it that way, and heaven help any staff she heard pronouncing it as "eye-rahn"! Even though she's now working in another country, I still twitch a bit when I hear anyone using the "eye" pronunciation.
ReplyDeleteEver Anonymous in New Jersey
David Crosbie wrote: ...
ReplyDeleteI've worked out that
1. I use the panty rhyme when anti- is an obvious prefix attached to an English word which carries a stress ...
2. I use the KIT vowel when anti- carries stress — as in ANT-ih-matter ...
3. ... as in an-TIPP-athy, an-TITH-esis, an-TIFF-phony.
It's only just occurred to me that my pronunciation follows much of David Crosbie's experience. On the rare (these days, anyway) occasions I find myself thinking or saying "antipathy" or "antimatter" or "antithesis", I'd pronounce them as he's written – only in an American accent (that is different to Lynne's). It's because I don't tend to remember, usually, that "anti-" is a prefix when I'm thinking or saying those words.
Although I am always very aware of the prefix-iness of the "anti-" in "anti-Christ", I'm not sure how I say it. Don't really use that one much. (I know I don't say "TIE" in it anywhere, though.)
Anonymous in New Jersey
Here it would not be Ee-rahn or Ee-rahq, but a much shorter "i" sound - I think it would be called the KIT vowel, no? And the emphasis very slightly on the final syllable
ReplyDeleteMrs Redboots
ReplyDeleteI think most English-of-England speakers (I think I can say most British speakers other than Scots) use their KIT vowel for the first syllable and their BATH vowel for the second. (The BATH vowel sounds different in the South and in the North.)
That said, some speakers use different norms for countries — especially Muslim countries. Well, some people post on the Internet insisting on the AH sound in Iraq, Iraq and (with some vehemence) Pakistan even when the regional norm for BATH is a 'short-a' vowel like the one in TRAP words.
The PRICE vowel used by some Americans in the first syllable is a logical spelling pronunciation of letter-I + SINGLE CONSONANT + VOWEL.
We could say EYE-tuh-ly (Italy), but we don't. When we say EYE TAL yun (Italian) rhyming with my stallion, it's a joke. But the pejorative abbreviation is pronounced EYE-TIE with two PRICE vowels.
For some reason large numbers revert to spelling pronunciation for the first syllable of Ibiza. Bizarrely, the most popular pronunciation uses old-fashioned Anglicising PRICE vowel for the first syllable, then near-Castilian BEE-thuh for the rest of the word.
As a practising occultist, I can confirm that deosil and widdershins are in wide use as the normal specialist terms for clockwise and anti-clockwise. Deosil is more common, simply because clockwise movement is itself more common in rituals.
ReplyDeleteThe directions are strongly associated with the the Sun's movement as viewed from the northern hemisphere. (I've seen sunwise used once or twice as an equivalent of deosil.) "White" magic associates itself with this natural course of progression, and therefore if you're turning around or walking in a circle, for instance, you move deosil. Moving widdershins would be very unusual, and would be associated with destructive magic such as cursing.
Anonymous in New Jersey noted:
ReplyDeleteAlthough I am always very aware of the prefix-iness of the "anti-" in "anti-Christ", I'm not sure how I say it. Don't really use that one much. (I know I don't say "TIE" in it anywhere, though.)
Which raises an interesting point. In American English, if someone accused me of hating Christianity they might say I'm anti-Christ with a long "i" (ant-eye), but if I claimed to be THE Anti-Christ I'd likely use the short "i" (ant-ee).
On a related point, Dick, would you always say Antichrist of the Antichrist? Your comment above would seem to suggest that you use it without the article, which to me is new.
ReplyDeleteIain
ReplyDeleteI think Dick is echoing Tristan Tsara's (alleged)
Consider me anti — i.e. 'anti-art'.
(see above)
Iain: I'm a little confused by your query. As I suggested in my previous post, if I denied I hated Christianity I might say "I'm not anti-Christ", but if I denied being Mephistopheles I might say "I'm not the Anti-Christ". (Or the Antichrist, since the preferred spelling seems to be no hyphen and a lowercase "c".) Is this not a meaningful distinction to you?
ReplyDeleteI think Dick is echoing Tristan Tsara's (alleged)
ReplyDeleteConsider me anti — i.e. 'anti-art'.
In which case I assume the "anti" in Tzara's remark would be pronounced "ant-eye" ...
I don't know how it is in the UK, but to my mind as an anglophone I reserve the right to pronounce prefixes ending in "i" with either a short or a long vowel. So if I pronounced "quasi" with a long i I might be interested in projecting a certain skepticism, e.g.,
Blowhard: America is a democracy, is it not?
Me: I think at best it's a quasi-democracy.
On the other hand, if I were to pronounced the title of Quasi-Experimental Research Designs by Bruce A. Thyer I'd use a short i.
Dick
ReplyDeleteIn which case I assume the "anti" in Tzara's remark would be pronounced "ant-eye" ...
That would ruin the joke. It would also ruin the subsequent rhymes.
Actors — of all nationalities — are under an obligation to the playwright which may override their usual democratic entitlement.
I used to used anti-clockwise, but have switched to using counter-clockwise as it is easier to abbreviate. CW and CCW are easier to make sense of than CW and ACW.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure I've heard American movie actors say Eye-talian. But I suspect Britons may sometimes use similar pronunciations, since we have Eyetie as an insulting word for an Italian, and the kind of person who holidays in Ibiza will often pronounce it Eye-bee-thuh.
ReplyDeleteI wonder whether Eye-ran and Eye-rack are influenced by Eye-daho which, until fairly recently and maybe still, American children would have heard first. Probably enough Italians around to prevent Eye-taly from gaining traction.
These live prefixes: anti-, semi- and multi- vary in AmE. Bi-, demi-, centi- milli- (and so on), midi-, mini-, uni-, wiki-, aas well as less 'live' prefixes such as omni- and sesqui-, are all 'eee' in BrE, and I can't recall ever hearing an 'eye' in any of them from anyone. Quasi- is probably used less frequently than most of these, and Chambers gives it three British pronunciations (my quasi-phonetics because I have no idea how to do other than plain text in these comments): kway-seye, kway-zeye and kwah-zee. Maybe Quasimodo will influence us to settle on the last of these.
Nick Cannon, who I have heard on TV as host/compere of America's Got Talent, switches between semeefinal and semeyefinal, and I cannot detect any pattern. Maybe he is reflecting different external influences, being geographically and socially mobile.
And what does that have to do with anti-/counter-? How these comments can shift - no: develop - the topic!
Keith
DeleteIn words like bipolar, bilateral, bisexual, the spelling bi- represents a prefix which is
• normally transparent in meaning (always 'two' and often more narrowly 'both' )
* not really productive. It almost always attaches to Latin (or Latin-derived) nouns or adjectives.
[Chemistry invented Latin nouns/adjectives like sulphide, sulphate, carbonate.]
In the only exception I can think of, nineteenth century political writers invented words to denote 'both political parties' and 'both legislative houses'. Bi-partisan and bi-party were accepted but neither *bi-house nor *bi-chamber seemed right, so they went for the purer Latin bi-cameral.
[The hyphen in earlier spellings signalled that the spelling bi- represented a prefix, one of predictable meaning.]
Thus bi- is less 'live' than omni- which combines much more happily with non-Latin-like words — most notably in omnishambles.
This bi-prefix is normally pronounced with the PRICE vowel in British English, just as in American. It's exactly like buy ('purchase').
In my speech, I think, there are no exceptions. The Longman Pronunciation Dictionary admits a second pronunciation of bivalent, so that it rhymes with ambivalent — presumably by analogy. I would use what is given as the more common pronunciation BIGH-VAY-luhnt. (The alternative is BIVV-uh-luhnt.)
Another apparent exception is bigamy, which English 'borrowed' from Latin and French back in the Middle Ages as an indivisible word rather than a prefixed word.
For quasi- the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary entry implies — for both British and American pronunciation — no less than eight pronunciations if the prefix caries word stress, and another eight if it carries secondary stress.
DeleteWITH PRIMARY STRESS
ˈkweɪz ai, ˈkweɪs-, ˈkwɑ:z-, ˈkwæz-, -i
WITH SECONDARY STRESS
ˌkweɪz ai, ˌkweɪs-, ˌkwɑ:z-, ˌkwæz-, -i
This amounts to your three
• plus versions with the TRAP vowel
• all ending in either a PRICE or a KIT vowel
Personally I prefer kweɪzaɪ — the one you represent as kway-zeye.
[The proliferation is caused by the way people copy or don't copy their own pronunciations of Latin, and the difference pronunciations of Latin they have learned.]
PS
If you can type common phonetic symbols (available in many fonts), or if you can copy & paste them, they will appear in Blogger posts like ours.
For what it's worth: I'm reading an article from American Speech in 1931 in which the author complains about the 'eye' pronunciation in semi- and anti- as being in imitation of the British.
DeleteCombs, Josiah. 1931. The radio and pronunciation. American Speech 7, 124–129.
Just thought of Ikea - Eye-key-uh. The Swedes pronounce it Ick-ee-uh, something I learned from a Swedish lesbian who said that those British lesbians who wear an Ikea T-shirt to signal 'Dyke here' would be mortified to think they were really (her word) signalling 'Dick here'!
ReplyDeleteIn trying to shorten an overlong post I mistakenly moved 'bi' from its own one-item list pronounced 'eye' into the 'eee' list. I was never good at being brief! Sorry for creating a red herring, David.
ReplyDeleteBrE(Scot). Fascinating post, as usual, but one that leaves me with strong feelings of baffled frustration. Despite (numerous) eloquent explanations from David Crosbie, Mrs Redboots and others, the American commenters are still couching the debate in terms of eye- versus ee-. Does no one in the US have or use the KIT vowel? Are the only alternatives you can hear KEET and KITE? And sorry, Keith D, but the KIT vowel is not rendered eee: kit rhymes with mitt, not with met. Personally, I can’t hear a difference in vowels in panty and aunty.
ReplyDeleteSome of you may be interested in the novel “Last Call” by Tim Powers, which is a (sort of) modern fantasy. Think fisher king mythos set in Las Vegas. One of the characters uses “diesel” and “windshield” as alternatives for deosil and widdershins. It makes sense in the story.