gyros to gyroscope to gyre and gimble

[Lynne Murphy]

> I'm interested in the pronunciation of "gyroscope" since before it was
> taken over by Remington-Rand, my father worked for Sperry Gyroscope in
> Lake Success, NY and at Sperry it was pronounced with [g]--like the
> Disney character Gyro Gearloose.  However, I have a faint recollection
> of the toy as pronounced with a [dZ]!
> _________________________________________________________________
> David Bergdahl          http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~bergdahl

This reminds me of Jabberwocky.  I tend to say "dZire and gimble in the
wabe" (i.e., soft g on gyre, hard on gimble), but sometimes I say both as
hard.  This often strikes my students as odd, but they tend to be split
about whether the g's are both hard or both soft.  Is there an "official"
pronunciation?

Lynne

Dr M Lynne Murphy
Lecturer in Linguistics
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK