Mispronunciation

[Amy West]

Is there perhaps some historical reason as well for the astronomers
to use this pron? The planet wasn't discovered until after we had
telescopes so it's name wasn't assigned until the late 1700s.  Or
perhaps just a logic of pattern? Why give this one planet a Latinate
pronunciation (that's what I'm assuming the your-Anus pron. is ) when
we don't do the same for Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, etc.?

  Thanks for renewing my faith in the "correctness" of my dad's pron:
I resisted so many of his odd Western prons of things like "roof" and
"route" as a kid (we were in Buffalo at the time).

---Amy West

>
>Date:    Wed, 13 Dec 2006 09:53:48 -0500
>From:    "Dennis R. Preston" <preston at MSU.EDU>
>Subject: Re: Mispronunciation
>
>You know a quantitativist like me is countin. I've already heard from
>several others that this was a common US "professional"
>pronunciation, both with the motivation to avoid chuckles but also
>simply with that of insider-outsider.
>
>dInIs

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org