Pronunciation: How many of you know its NOT zoo-ol-ogy? If so it would have 3 o's?

Question

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/zoology

Answer 1

The suffix "-ology" means "the knowledge of". or "the study of", so whatever precedes the suffix has to be properly pronounced before the suffix itself is spoken. In this case what comes before the suffix is "zo-", and there is no grammatically sound reason for pronouncing "zo-" the same as "zoo".

I work with a lot of scientists, and certain pronunciations do get on my nerves, and I stress them to students when I teach. For example, we do a lot of work with apoptosis, or "programmed cell death". When an english-speaking person sees "pop", he wants to pronounce it just as it appears. So I hear scientists all the time saying "a-POP-tosis". However, the root word here is "ptosis", a word with a silent "p" at the beginning. The prefix "apo-" precedes the root word. So the correct pronunciation is apo-ptosis, which sounds exactly like apo-tosis.

Answer 2

I am listening to "Milk It" Nirvana BQ: I am sooo tired I haven't had any sleep, maahh. BQ2: Is it a stuffed kitten? If so then because stuffed kittens are the best! BQ3: 8807 Debra Ave. in the San Fernando Valley in Southern California, im way to specific. BQ4: I quite like "The Presidents Of The United States of America" album cover. BQ5: Always Iceage, always. BQ6: Yeeah dawg, I raze the hizzay in this place, ill hit you up later, dawwwg.

Answer 3

Yeah, that's technically correct. But judging from what I've been seeing around here, most of the people on this site can't even spell Zoology, so we've got bigger things to worry about.

Answer 4

I was just having this conversation with a relative last weekend. We're both biologists, but pronounce it differently. I pronouce it "zoo-ol-ogy" while she pronounces it "zo-ol-ogy". I thnk it's similar to how different people pronounce scientific names differenly, it's how we were taught by different professors in college/grad school. According to the dictionary, we should all be saying it "ZO-OL-OGY"

Answer 5

The pronunciation you favor is going out of favor. You are formally correct, but for how long. All this week I am going to say, zoooo-ol-ogy

Answer 6

The English language has exceptions like this. If this exception did not exist, it would not matter how many O's you would put it in the word. With your point, it would always be (Zulogy)

Answer 7

James H is a moron. It's pronounced the way it's spelt.(sic)
Other common mispronunciations are beastiality for bestiality and geneology for genealogy. No wonder teachers get paid so little if they can't even teach people how to pronounce things properly.

Answer 8

zoology