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Author: Subject: 'Meeth-isle' or 'Meth-ill'? Pronunciation of organic groups
weeksie98
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[*] posted on 11-4-2014 at 09:23
'Meeth-isle' or 'Meth-ill'? Pronunciation of organic groups


Just a small niggle.
I constantly interchange between the two pronunciations of methyl, and my chemistry teacher favours the former. Since I am an annoying stickler for grammatical correctness, I wondered what other people on the board say, as, every time I say butyl, propyl, methyl or ethyl, I always wonder whether I'm doing it right. Opinions welcome!




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Ax165Xj
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[*] posted on 11-4-2014 at 09:28


I always use the second pronunciation but as an American, there isn't really an option. If I ever pronounced it the first way, my chemist friends would think I was having a stroke.
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[*] posted on 11-4-2014 at 09:58


Methyl rhymes with my great-aunt Ethel.



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[*] posted on 11-4-2014 at 10:04


What about meta? Is it may-ta or meh-ta?



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[*] posted on 11-4-2014 at 10:11


Quote: Originally posted by Magpie  
What about meta? Is it may-ta or meh-ta?

As in, "I meta girl last night".




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eidolonicaurum
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[*] posted on 11-4-2014 at 11:31


Much like you, I interchange between the two. Though I tend to favour "meeth-isle". Another one is phenyl. I say "fee-nile" to distinguish between phenol => fee-nol

(I think)

[Edited on 11-4-2014 by eidolonicaurum]




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[*] posted on 11-4-2014 at 11:33


Quote: Originally posted by eidolonicaurum  
Much like you, I interchange between the two. Though I tend to favour "meeth-isle". Another one is phenyl. I say "fee-nile" to distinguish between phenol => fee-nol


Phenol is fee-NOL. Phenyl is FEN-ill (just like fennel).




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[*] posted on 11-4-2014 at 12:54


Ok, how about acetyl?

I hear
Ass ee TULL
Ass UH teel
Ah set ill
I use the first one, but I hear people say it the other ways, discuss.

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[*] posted on 11-4-2014 at 13:19


I say a-SEE-tull. Biologists seem to say assa-TEEL for some reason.



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[*] posted on 11-4-2014 at 14:19


Ok, another one, not exactly organic groups. I graduated from college in 1984, the computer age was barely waking up, we learned to pronounce giga (gigahertz) as jig-a, I know it's now pretty universally pronounced as gig-a. But I do run into the rare sole who also says jig-a. Anybody else taught to say jig-a. Probably one of those gif-jif things.
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[*] posted on 11-4-2014 at 14:52


I checked various dictionaries. It seems that meeth-isle, along with eeth-isle, is the British pronunciation, and the other is American.

As for phenyl and phenol, I always find myself saying fen-ol and phee-nile.

Just seems logical.




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[*] posted on 11-4-2014 at 16:45


I say Ah set ill sometimes, but more like uh set ul (like di-uh-set-ul). Most of the time I say Ass ee TULL.

[Edited on 4/12/14 by thesmug]
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[*] posted on 12-4-2014 at 23:04


Out of the options for acetyl, I say none! I say asee-tile.
Also, how do you pronounce the uranium cations, uranous and uranyl?




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[*] posted on 13-4-2014 at 01:13



U-ran-us and U-ran-il

i usually say as ee tile
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[*] posted on 13-4-2014 at 04:18


Quote: Originally posted by eidolonicaurum  

Also, how do you pronounce the uranium cations, uranous and uranyl?

Reluctantly.
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[*] posted on 13-4-2014 at 04:30


AH-suh-tate, but a-SEH-tic and a-SEE-till



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[*] posted on 13-4-2014 at 10:47


I think there's a difference (at least for methyl) between the UK (perhaps including European languages) and the US. It might be interesting to compare old editions of Webster's and Oxford's dictionaries to see how far back this goes.

The lack of any large definitive chemical pronunciation dictionary has surely compounded the problem. The ACS committee on pronunciation has to be the lamest committee in the history of lame committees. Students may have one professor pronouncing one way, others otherwise.

Words have changed in my lifetime, most prominently (on the news) ephedrine. Gould's 1923 Pocket Pronouncing Medical Dictionary has f uh drin, Fieser (1960 and pre-meth) f uh dreen, but since meth it's uh fed rin. And if you pronounce it any other way now, you're a total idiot who doesn't know shit from shinola, which is often ironically mispronounced in the process.

[Edited on 13-4-2014 by S.C. Wack]




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[*] posted on 13-4-2014 at 11:36


I tend to pronounce chemicals the way I think they should be pronounced based on spelling and similar chemicals, which gets me some very odd looks at times if I've only run across the name in print. (Is catechol CAT-eh-kahl, CAT-eh-chahl, cat-eh-CHAHL, cat-eh-KAHL, CAT-eh-kool, cat-eh-KOHL, cat-eh-CHOHL, KATE-chohl...oh, there are so many potential variations. At least 36, by my calculations.)

The one individual from the UK I've worked with said METH-ill, but he was somewhat Americanized by the time I'd met him.
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[*] posted on 13-4-2014 at 17:15


I say METH-ul for methyl, uh-SEH-til for acetyl, fee-nol for phenol, and FIN-ul for phenyl to name a few mentioned on this thread.
I blame being from Texas for the predominance of "uh" sounds.
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[*] posted on 17-4-2014 at 04:39


The abbreviation of Journal of Analytical Chemistry is J.Anal.Chem. hehe
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