[B-Greek] Pronouncing PILATOS

Mitchell, John W JWMitchell at midamerican.com
Thu Aug 12 12:35:34 EDT 2004


I personally would prefer consistency over historical pronunciations.
However, I don't want other people to give me funny looks when I
pronounce words.  I have encountered several other words that Mounce
pronounces differently than I would have expected.  Thus far I've been
ignoring his pronunciation and saying the word how I think it should
sound.  But should I just suck it up and admit that these words are
"special"?

John Mitchell

-----Original Message-----
From: George F. Somsel [mailto:gfsomsel at juno.com] 
Sent: Thursday, August 12, 2004 11:08 AM
To: jschwandt at nsa.edu
Cc: Mitchell, John W; b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Pronouncing PILATOS

On Thu, 12 Aug 2004 08:22:42 -0700 "John Schwandt" <jschwandt at nsa.edu>
writes:
> George,
> 
> It would be helpful to me if you mentioned your reason or method for 
> your pronunciation decision.  There are variations of the Erasmian 
> pronunciation system (Machen, Smyth) that choose the historical 
> pronunciation for omicron (closer to a long o as in "open" rather than

> ah as in "toss").
> Allen and
> Mounce recommend the "ah" sound.  Regarding John's question, it 
> appears that the author of the CD is making an exception to the Mounce

> system for familiar words or names.
> 
> Blessings,
> John Schwandt
> 
> > -----Original Message-----

My reason for pronouncing it in this fashion is, in the words of Tevya
in _Fidler on the Roof_ "TRADITION" -- namely, mine.  I have always,
correctly or incorrectly, attempted to distinguish between the omega and
omicron as well as the epsilon, iota, and eta.  Also, the "o" in "toss"
is more like "aw" in "thaw" to distinguish it from "ah" as in "father." 
As I said, it's just an attempt to distinguish as well as to be
consistent.

george
gfsomsel




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