Re: You Say Tomato and I Say Tomahto: Getting a Handle on Pronouncing Apoptosis

Extract

I am writing about the item in the News section ( 1 ) in which Bob Kuska attempted to lay to rest the controversy over the pronunciation of “ apoptosis.” Although it is true that a proper name can be pronounced any way at all (e.g., Tagliaferro is often pronounced “ Tolliv-er” ), there are rules for Greek pronunciation and they do not include silencing the “ p” in “ pt” when it occurs in the middle of the word. Following the author'ss recommendation, helicopter would be “ hel-i-cot-er,” proptosis would be “ prot-osis,” and lepidoptera would be “ lep-i-dot-era.” With all due respect to Kerr et al. ( 2 ) , it would not seem necessary to change the rules of Greek pronunciation simply to accommodate the process they observed. By the way, pathologists have been recognizing this process for many years on light microscopic examination, but they called it “ karyorrhexis” from karyon for nucleus or nut and rhexis, a breaking. A new word to describe the process may not have been necessary in the first place; making up new rules for pronouncing it seems even less justified.