Joined: Sun Oct 23, 2005 9:51 pm Posts: 28 Location: Aberdeen, Washington
Thank You Tim. That is the way I pronounce Hematite. My watchgeeks tell me I pronounce it like I am some kind of aristocrat. I tell them that I have studied gems but they still pronounce the first way because a TV watch salesman pronounced that way.
Joined: Fri Jun 25, 2010 10:06 pm Posts: 2267 Location: Chapel Hill, NC / Toronto, ON
Waaaaiiiiit......that doesn't sound right. Hematite derives from the Greek "haima", meaning blood, because the rich red color of ochre reminded the ancients of blood. Think of hemoglobin and its pronunciation (not the charge of its coordinated iron though). The prefix "heme" is pronounced "heem", kinda like meme or gene.
So really, it should be "HEEM-a-tight", unless you're an old stubborn British person that deliberately uses pronounciations from the colonial era.
Joined: Thu Jan 24, 2008 4:01 pm Posts: 1902 Location: Pine City, NY and Dothan, AL
Hemoglobin is pronounced by uppity medical people to distinguish themselves from us uneducated common folk who don't speak Greek.
Incidentally, some dictionaries give the short 'e' version of hemoglobin as a second pronunciation. After all, we don't usually spell it "haemoglobin" any more.
Joined: Fri Jun 25, 2010 10:06 pm Posts: 2267 Location: Chapel Hill, NC / Toronto, ON
You know, I've got to throw this in there. When I was doing my ochem research, I was using hematite to catalyze or inhibit reactions. Every single person in the 20+ person lab group pronounced it the way I mentioned, with the "eem" sound instead of the "em" sound. That included all the people from other English-speaking countries like the UK and India.
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