One obvious area of consensus in our recent threads on pronunciation was that most people consider it extremely rude to publicly correct someone else's pronunciation.
But there is another aspect of this greater issue which intrigues me. And I'll bet that many of those outraged at the idea that some pronunciations might be "better" than others will not hesitate to indulge in this bit of lack of civility. In most groups to which I belong, members will not hesitate to correct one another (sometimes very rudely) about the identification of plants, especially if the "wrong" botanical name is used. It goes so far that some people will pipe up and - comity be damned - sharply correct a speaker's identification during a lecture/slide presentation. In the past this was confined mostly to persons with a highly specialized knowledge of the area in question (and we have not shortage of experts here). But now that so many popular gardening publications jump at the chance to use the latest and greatest name, everyman now thinks himself an expert. How do the rest of you feel about this practice of correcting one another and correcting speakers? Jim McKenney
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