Re: How to pronounce "Anemoi"

jerry_friedman@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
On Jan 16, 9:33 pm, "jerry_fried...@xxxxxxxxx"
<jerry_fried...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Jan 16, 5:01 pm, "Philip Eden" <philipATweatherHYPHENukDOTcom>
wrote:
[...]
'Anemometer' is, of course, usually pronounced with the primary
stress on the 'o' and a secondary stress on the initial 'a'. But we
also have an instrument - a self-registering anemometer - which
we call an 'anemograph'. Throughout my lifetime it has always
had the primary stress on the 'e', and I have heard it with either
a long or a short 'e' in roughly equal measure. Being faithful to
the Greek would, I guess, be best achieved by shifting the
primary stress to the 'a' and giving a secondary stress to 'graph',
but it sounds very strange.

There's also the anemone or windflower, accented on the second
syllable. What all these words have in common is an accent on the
third-last syllable.

Though strangely enough, Greek "anemone" is accented on the third
syllable, according to

http://el.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%91%CE%BD%CE%B5%CE%BC%CF%8E%CE%BD%CE%B7

(Take that!)

The third-syll stress is because it's a long "o"--omega, not omicron.
But many "anemo-" compounds in Greek also have a third-syll stress on a
short "o" because of a tendency to stress the third from the end, as
Jerry mentions. I don't really know why the flower and a few other words
have a long "o", and my views on these matters should be taken with a
spoonful of caution in any case.

--
Mike.


.

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