Robert Bushnell wrote in 11369:
>?? Older grammar books say the possessive is always 's which I prefer.
>We can say
> "Let us go to Bill Potts' house and argue the pronunciation of giga."
>or we can say
> "Let us go to Bill Potts's house and argue the pronunciation of giga."
> PS I go for the soft g (as in giant) for the first g in giga.
This set me to my dictionaries. Giga comes from Greek. In Greek all
letters have a unique sound, and in the case of gamma that sound is a hard
g. By the time giga got into the Italian language that first g was
certainly soft, like j. My Latin dictionary does not give pronunciations,
probably because they are controverisial. The Roman Catholic church uses
Italian pronunciation of Latin. However, linguists in this century have
contended that Caesar should be pronounced not as "seeser" but as German
"kaisar".
Hence I vote for giga with hard g's.
Joseph B. Reid
17 Glebe Road West
Toronto M5P 1C8 Tel. 416 486-6071
