Mispronounced plant names

[Yamadori]

I've come across a few doozies in my time, but I was in the garden centre this morning and as I went in I passed two ladies chatting. One of them said "I want to get a Thunderbill".

Er... a what? Ten minutes later I came across them both again, strolling around the shrubs section. She was clutching a Berberis thunbergii. 😁

Has anyone else heard any good ones?

My mum’s neighbour who has since moved away used to call ‘anemones’ ‘enemas’. Always made us laugh.

Is it an eh mones

Or

An en o meees?

Tbh I think I pronounce every single plant name wrong.

Finally got the hang of ii ( eeee I ) this year.

😬

My DD was studying plants last year. I did Latin at school and still massively struggled. We decided as long as it was close it was good enough.

Pet hate in this department- people who mispronounce Weigela, adding an extra i, making it Wei-gee-LI-a instead of Wei-gee-la.
Surprisingly common, even my DH does it! (Yes I have corrected him! 😂)

@dairydebris It is: 'An Emma Knee'.

I've heard 'sea anemone' pronounced wrongly by narrators of wildlife programmes. You'd think someone would have noticed during the voice-over recording process, but clearly not.

Cyclamen, are they sigh or sick? In our house they're cycle paths.

When I was at primary school we had a story book about a gardener who sowed some seeds in a pair of old boots. It took me a while to understand that what I thought were nas-tur-it-i-ums and what the teacher called nas-tur-shums were in fact the same thing 😁

In Dutch fuchsia is pronounced fuck-see-a... Fyou-sha still doesn't feel right to me despite living here for nearly 20 years.
Obviously we're both wrong because it is named after Leonhart Fuchs from Germany (well, the Holy Roman Empire but Bavaria), so it should be foox-ia.

I don't like it when people say day-lia when it is obviously dahl-ia. Makes me wonder how they pronounce Roald Dahl's surname?

Re anemone - a German gardening friend and I use the German/Dutch pronunciation even though we speak English to each other. Ah-nuh-MOAN is so much easier than ah-NEH-mo-nee.

My friend, who is a fucking FLORIST, pronounces (and indeed writes) ‘gypsophila’ as ‘gypsohilia’ (pronouncing it gypsopheelia).

It’s been annoying me for at least 20 years.

How have you not upended her into one of her own vases? Your restraint is impressive. 😂

I have had to hide her on SM, such is my annoyance.

I never know if it’s a hard ‘g’ or a soft one 😬.

When I see "cotoneaster" written down, I read it as "coton-easter", not "coto-ny-aster" as I believe you should say it. I enjoy saying it the wrong way to wind my mum up 😄

I thought it was VEE-ghel-a but wiki says Weigela /waɪˈdʒiːlə/
(Have been corrected when I've said plant names as they looked to me. @PorkPieForStarters , you named it! Glad it's not just me. I said 'cotton-easter'.)

I thought is was ‘cotton-easter’ until I was at a uni lecture. The correct pronunciation is much nicer, tbf.

This!!!

My people! 🤗

Weigelia gives me The Rage. As does gypsopheelia.

I grew up in a family that called Helichrysum Helicreeshum - is that wrong? You can't go wrong with straw flower.

Clematis, as in cat on a mat, not mate. If you put the emphasis on the first syllable, where it should be, in my not at all humble opinion, clemate-is sounds daft.

The number of people who give nasturtiums an n at the end - nasturshuns. Or even worse nazturshuns.

I'm not convinced Monty gives foliage the three syllables it deserves, it sounds very like an unconfident foalidge.

I see your plants and raise you tools. Brian on Beechgrove cutting things with his seccatears. That makes me weep.

@lcakethereforeIam sick. I've never heard the cycle version.

I lived my whole life saying “gyp-so-feelia” and no one ever corrected me, and I don’t recall hearing it said aloud. A couple of years ago I said it in the office and my colleague politely said, “erm, actually it’s pronounced “gyps-AW-philla”. Deep shame.

I got some funny looks at the garden centre when asking if they had any Ligustrum superbum. It's a beautiful variegated Chinese Privet, but I just had the Latin name which I pronounced "super-bum" rather than "superb-um". I did wonder why they had given it such a stupid-sounding name!

I did Latin at school and was informed by our teacher there’s no official pronunciation of it, so anything goes. If anyone corrects my botanical Latin pronunciation, I tell them it’s open to interpretation.

I agree. The people who spoke Latin as a first language are long dead. The scientific binomial names were decided from about 1753 onwards (Linnaeus was a Swede). Many of them are a combination of Latin, Greek, people's names, and whatever they fancied. Begonia darthvaderiana anyone?

That said, when I meet foreign plant people I do stick to the Roman/Italian pronunciation, as that's usually the easiest way to be understood. So gypsophila would be -feela, not -filla. Even if γύψος (gupsos) and φιλεῖν (philein) are Greek... We all love plaster in our own way 😉

Being understood is more important than being right.

I started pronouncing nasturtiums as nasty-urshums when my kids were small to amuse them and up their interest in gardening. I'm now trying to break myself of the habit.

I've never found a way of saying Erysimum that I'm happy with, so I pronounce it wallflower.

I know daylia is wrong but I feel a bit ever-so saying dahlia.

I know it's called crocosmia now, but my granny called it montbretia, which I'm sure she was pronouncing correctly as she spoke French quite well I think. My culchie Norn Iron child brain translated it to mom-BREEZE-ya.

I fancy myself as a bit of a horticulturalist, so jumped on this thread hoping to chortle along with the experts but have learned to my everlasting shame that I have been pronouncing gypsophila wrong my whole life.

I've only heard it be called gypsophilia.