Comments on: Clostridium difficile - again

By: Graham

Graham — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 21:10:08 +0000

Nigel - because most people in Britain have learned a little French at school, while most have not learned any Italian.

By: Nigel Greenwood

Nigel Greenwood — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:21:55 +0000

I hate to b. diff., but why should the false analogy be with French rather than Italian, which would satisfy almost everyone?

By: Roger Dinsdale

Roger Dinsdale — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 07:57:57 +0000

The comment from Athel Cornish-Bowden is consistent with the way I have always pronounced the final ‘e’ (assuming that his ‘é’ is pronounced as ‘ay’, as in the French word ‘entrée’). This is the way I was taught to pronounce the final ‘e’ by my Latin teacher 50 years ago. I have little recollection of the language but do recall him using the phrase ‘minime vero’ (is that ‘no, indeed’?), pronouncing the ‘e’ as ‘ay’. The school psalm ended with ’in nomine patri…etc.’, again with the ‘e’ pronounced as ‘ay’. The Latin teacher was very, very old and I believe he knew some ancient Romans personally, so I expect that he was correct.

By: Athel Cornish-Bowden

Athel Cornish-Bowden — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 15:04:50 +0000

As it happens I heard a French speaker use the term Clostridium difficile in a lecture in French a couple of weeks ago. She did not pronounce “difficile” like the French word spelled in the same way but followed normal French conventions for pronouncing Latin, with stress on the second syllable and a clearly enunciated final é. A sample of 1 is not evidence, of course, but it did make me wonder why we should use a mock-French pronunciation in English if French people don’t use one in French.