this post was submitted on 22 Apr 2024
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Science Memes

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speedometers (mander.xyz)
submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 51 points 7 months ago (3 children)

When I was in elementary school, one of my classmates pronounced it "thermo meter" and I had to watch the science teacher struggle for a good 30 seconds to decide if he was going to correct him or not.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 7 months ago (4 children)

For anyone confused.

Most other languages do call it a thermo meter or similar. People who are not native English speakers will pronounce it wrongly when speaking English, because the word is the same - it's just pronounced weirdly in both British and American English. The British and American pronunciations are not exactly the same on this, but they're both ~~wrong~~ different from any other languages, except Greek.

The English pronunciation is caused by English inheriting the Greek way of stressing the third last syllable on words of Greek origin. It makes no sense in my mind why they do it on compound words though. Meter is not Greek. It's English, so they could've chosen differently, but they obviously chose the most annoying way to pronounce it.

There's a few other words like that, but I don't remember which..

[–] [email protected] 23 points 7 months ago (3 children)

I think we should start pronouncing molecules or particles like Hercules, just to be consistent

[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Now you're just wrecking my mind.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Just as long they don't wreck your testicles.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

I think we can agree on that one.

In any of the languages that I know the pronunciation of, there are no differences in the pronunciation of deez nutz.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Hah. That reminds me of a joke I used to play on my wife back when cars had cd players. After we got in the car, about once a month I would come up with

"Hey can you go and get that CD for the ride?"

"What CD?"

"See Deez Nutz."

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

Ha. Thanks. I'll use that on my family today .

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

Mole-cue-leez?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Thermo meter Thermometer

Me: They are the same picture

Seriously though i did not understand which one I am pronouncing. I would usually read thermo meter and thermometer the same. When I try to differentiate by trying to make it sound together, or by trying to make more detatched, i just can't and end up pronouncing the same

[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Ok. In English it's pronounced third-MOM-meet-her.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEwofs_IPmY

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

In Spanish as well. Ter-MO-metro

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

That's just an Irish accent.

Edit: Except those last two letters. That's so out there I didn't even register it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Thanks I guess i'll stick to thermo meter lol

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Pedometer is the first one that comes to mind for me.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I don't even want to know how that's pronounced correctly. It's obviously two words. Foot and meter. Wtf is a Dom?

Circumference is pretty bad too.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

I think it's the same as ther-MOM-iter. Pe-DOM-iter

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Meter is not Greek.

Do you mean its pronunciation is not Greek?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Both thermo and meter are from Greek, but the combination didn't exist until the 17th century

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

What you wrote before is confusing then.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I like to do that with a lot of the o'meters, just for fun.

Acceler-o-meter and seis-o-meter are my favorite. Weirdly least fun: kil-o-meter.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Pedometer is my favorite of these. How many pedo's ya get in today?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Isn’t it usually the other way around? Pedos getting in…. You know what, never mind.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

and what the teacher did?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago

Corrected him. lol.