iayork at panix.com (Ian A. York) wrote:
>In article <nna-0603971103550001 at news>, A.J.Cann <nna at le.ac.uk> wrote:
>>>>So how do you pronounce apoptosis? Is it:
>The word derives from the greek roots "apo" and "ptosis". ("Apo" meaning
>away from, and "ptosis" means fall, or droop. The word originally was
>coined with the annual falling of the leaves in mind, as an example of
>programmed cell death, although I think it's now known that this actually
>isn't a case of classic apoptosis.)
>The "p" in "ptosis" is silent--compare "pterodactyl", for example--and the
>original suggestion was that therefore the second "p" in "apoptosis"
>should be silent: "apo-tosis". I believe that the guy who coined the word
>(Andrew Wiley, I think? -Or perhaps Wiley in cooperation with a classics
>professor at Cambridge) pronounces it without the "p". There are a
>number of examples which support this pronunciation, and it's the way I
>personally pronouce it. Another advantage of the silent "p" is the snob
>appeal, of course; it shows you're a thoughtful and literate scientist
>who is deeply concerned about the important things in life, like classical
>greek.
>Over the last couple of years, though, there has been a mild controversy
>on this in the letters column of Nature, and unfortunately for the
>silent-p theory, one of the letters to Nature pointed out that the word
>"helicopter", by that reasoning, should be pronounced "helico-ter", since
>of course the "pter" is derived from the greek for wing, which has a
>silent "p". I find this a pretty convincing argument, and have stopped
>sneering as much when I hear the "apop-tosis" pronunciation--but I'm
>still sticking with the silent "p".
>I also had a mild discussion on the pronunciation of the word with Brian
>Leber, at McMaster University, who firmly put me in my place by observing
>that the pronunciation depended on whether you were using New or Old
>Classic Greek. I nodded thoughtfully, stroked my chin, and scurried away
>as soon as possible. I'm still not quite sure if he was bluffing or not.
>Ian
>--
> Ian York (iayork at panix.com) <http://www.panix.com/~iayork/>
> "-but as he was a York, I am rather inclined to suppose him a
> very respectable Man." -Jane Austen, The History of England
Andrew Wyllie pronounces it apo--tosis. Currie was, I gather, the
Greek scholar in the Kerr, Wyllie, Currie article. North Americans
tend to say ap-op'-tosis. The new/old classic Greek argument tends to
relate to whether you ask classicists (apo-tosis) or ask native Greeks
(who tend to favor a-pop'-tosis in a very limited survey).
Richard A. Lockshin
(lockshin at mindspring.com;lockshin at sjumusic.stjohns.edu)
check out Cell Death Soc web page:
http://rdz.stjohns.edu/~lockshin/index.html
