Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
New Rule: pronounce OB/GYN like two words instead of five letters
I recently learned that OB/GYN is pronounced O-B-G-Y-N. That's F-U-C-K-E-D. It should be pronounced ob-gyn. Two words, two syllables. Everyone started doing that right now.
OED says ob-gyne (two syllables) with no mention of the initialism. Merriam-Webster says O.B.G.Y.N. (five letters) with no mention of pronouncing it as two syllables.
Linguaphiles hypothesizes that perhaps ob-gyne is physically difficult to pronounce, although I find it unremarkable. (Perhaps because it is unremarkable, perhaps I think of it as two words rather than one word with a -bg- in the middle, perhaps Polish has given me a high tolerance for difficult consonant clusters.)
2 comments:
I think in the US, people who work in OB/GYN do pronounce it ob-gine. I think. Not sure.
I want to find out.
OED says ob-gyne (two syllables) with no mention of the initialism. Merriam-Webster says O.B.G.Y.N. (five letters) with no mention of pronouncing it as two syllables.
Linguaphiles hypothesizes that perhaps ob-gyne is physically difficult to pronounce, although I find it unremarkable. (Perhaps because it is unremarkable, perhaps I think of it as two words rather than one word with a -bg- in the middle, perhaps Polish has given me a high tolerance for difficult consonant clusters.)
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