patina

[Victoria Neufeldt]

Webster's New World, Random House, and American Heritage all show 'PATina'
first and 'paTEEna' second (fairly recent editions).  Merriam-Webster has it
the other way around; the two variants were transposed for the Ninth
Collegiate edition, 1983, presumably because of evidence for a change in
prevailing pronunciation.  But none of the dictionaries mark their second
pronunciation shown as a limited or disputed one, so the implication is that
both are common in the U.S., and that usage may be pretty evenly split (one
or the other must be placed first, of course, even if the two are equally
common).   The Gage Canadian Dict (1983) and the Concise Oxford Dict (1990)
show only the 'PATina' pronunciation.

Victoria
Merriam-Webster, Inc. P.O. Box 281
Springfield, MA 01102
Tel: 413-734-3134  ext 124
Fax: 413-827-7262


    -----Original Message-----
    From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf
Of Victoria Pittman
    Sent: Friday, May 19, 2000 1:04 PM
    To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
    Subject: patina


    Hope someone can clear this up for me.  I am an artist working with
metals and often finish the work with a Patina.  I have always heard it
pronounced with the accent on the second syllable..
    and pronounced pa-TEEN-ah.  The dictionary puts the accent on the first
...PAT-in-ah.

    Is this an American/British difference or what?

    Thanks and sorry if this is a very basic question...I'm an artist not a
linguist...

    Victoria
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/attachments/20000519/b419a292/attachment.htm>