Pileated Pronunciation Poll
By Mike • January 13, 2008 • 24 commentsAs long as the ivory-bill’s existence remains ambiguous, North America’s reigning woodpecker must be the Pileated Woodpecker. This hulking beauty, black and white with a preposterously scarlet crest, is a most pleasing presence across much of the United States and Canada. That crazy coiffure along with its whinnying laugh betray this bird’s claim to fame as the inspiration for Woody Woodpecker but if you catch sight of Dryocopus pileatus, you probably won’t be thinking of cartoons. Once you stop staring in wonderment (yes, these birds are that cool, especially against the gray of winter) you might ask yourself this question:
“How do you pronounce pileated?”
The word ‘pileated’ is connected to the biological term pileum, which is the top of a bird’s head, the area extending from the base of the bill to the nape. Pileum in turn derives from the Latin word pileus, meaning cap or, if you wish to be as specific, felt cap without a brim. I believe it is generally accepted that in ancient Rome, the word was spoken with a long ‘i’ like pie. However, in the 21st century, we reserve the right to veer from the old ways, especially when it feels right. There are at least two reasonable ways to pronounce pileated and I’d like to know which one you adopt.
This isn’t the first pronunciation poll presented on 10,000 Birds. Our Plover Pronunication Poll was quite entertaining, albeit inconclusive. If we’re lucky, we’ll have even more incisive comments and participation in this one. As an added bonus, we’ll also finally be able to confidently call Pileated Parrots, Antwrens, Flycatchers, and Finches in the field. Sweet!
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“I believe it is generally accepted that in ancient Rome, the word was spoken with a long ‘i’ like pie.”
I’m hesitant to claim any kind of authority, but I would have thought it was a long ‘i’ like pee. The use of the letter ‘i’ to indicate the diphthong sound in ‘pie’ is an unusual feature of English: in most languages it indicates an ‘ee’ sound. Think of Italian and Spanish. Even in Anglo-Saxon (i.e. before the C11th) it either indicated the vowel in ‘pit’ or the one in ‘peet’; it was only with the Great Vowel Shift in the later medieval period that the pronunciation of vowels in English got all messed up and out of sync with everyone else.
So ‘pileum’ would I think be something like pee-lay-um. Usual disclaimer: IANAL.
Not, of course, that we need to let our own pronunciation be dictated by Latin. FWIW, I’ve always said ‘PILL-ee-ated’, but I’m British and that was just what seemed like the obvious pronunciation when I first looked in an American bird guide.
I’m with Harry on this and not just because I’m also a Brit. Definitely “Pill-ee-ated” and it never occurred to me to say it any other way, even with my latin O-level from 1969. In those days I don’t recall the pronunciation being a major part of the course and if it was I have obviously forgotten!
Keep up the good work on this website. As a regular visitor to Florida and just starting to visit Canada this is one of my favorite sites to look at.
PS. Sorry forgot to say I would have voted but couldn’t find a link to a voting site.
Definitely PILL-ee-ay-tid for me.
In Latin, the letter ‘i’ is pronounced ‘ee’, so an etymologically correct pronunciation would stick closely to that.
Well, good point BUT …
The latin word “pileum” wasn’t used in its original latin version when naming the Woodpecker but transferred into English by applying English grammar to it:
PileATED.
The English language has borrowed many, many words from Latin and surely doesn’t pronounce all of them like the good old Romans did.
So why this one?
If we presented the word “Pileated” to a crowd of non-birders, how would they - having never seen or heard it before - pronounce it?
I bet there would be a Pile of Pileateds and not even a small Pill of Pileateds…
Would you believe that I took two years of Latin? Clearly, I should have hit the books before bring my case to the public!
Is PEE-leated even an option for pronunciation?
Pill ee ay tid. It never occurred to pronounce it any other way.
Why not take the Cornell expert’s word? Great article here:
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/crows/birdname.htm
I’ve always said “pill.”
This article http://mexicobirding.com/about/pronounced_burd.pdf was posted by one of its authors in the SE AZ listserve when the apparently resident Northern Jacana (zah - sah - NAH) was discovered down there recently. It looks very similar to the article posted by Suzanne, though, so you may not want to read both. Or maybe you do!
We say PILL over here, but they are both correct…I say potato and you say potahtoh…couldn’t resist!
Cool to do a poll on this!
Boiders,
Cornell expert agrees with English’s orthography’s attempt to be “phonetic”:
What do we already know by analogy? First, see this list of analogues:
mile and mill
bile and bill
file and fill
In sum, here’s the orthographic rule (more or less–can’t say I’m willing to waste any more time on such trivial matters):
vowel followed by a single consonant = so-called long vowel
vowell followed by a doubled consonant = so-called short vowel
BB
P.S. How the Romans, Post-Etruscans, Christian-era inhabitants of Calabria, former Roman soldiers immigrated to Iberia, etc. pronounced their version of [pileum] is not important. Afterall, language, as all things biological, evolves, or at least changes.
Are you people nuts? It’s always been PYE-leated, Jochen is on the right track here and the “i” in latin can have different sounds depending where the letter is, for example:
Juli is pronounced Jul-E-E
Tiberius is prounced TYE-berius.
It has been my general experience in latin that when the “i” is at the end of the word, it takes on the “E” sound. If it is located elsewhere its more an “EYE” sound.
Thanks Mike, for allowing me to dust off my Classical Archaeology Degree! Ha Ha, Mom and Dad I knew I would have use for it someday!
My mom says PYE-leated, and surely there can be no higher authority.
It’s funny that you ran this poll. Saturday, while I was driving to Cabela’s store with my brother in law, I mentioned that I had seen a Pill-e-ated Woodpecker.- My brother in law tried to correct me by saying “Oh-you saw a Pie-leated Woodpecker?
Thanks for mentioning that, Larry. I knew the debate was raging somewhere, although the front seat of your car was a site that never occurred to me…
I guess I am in with the majority of 70% in the Pill-leated group–funny thing I was just out photoing one and his head moves so fast …well it is blurry…we have a lot of them here in B.C. cheers.
I pronounce it Pie lee ated. But then I’m from St. Louis, where they pronounce the state name Miss-ur-ee. The rest of the state says Miss-ur-a.
I say Pill for sure, but I accept both. It’s funny because Beth and I were just talking about it the other day. We have a friend who has them in her backyard and she says “pi-LEET-ed.”
OK - Now how do you pronounce Parula? BTW, I’m in the PIE-lee-ay-ted group.
Pill-eated, Pluhver, Paryula, Parasitic Yaeger (think Jaegermeister). Any other P’s to tackle?
I had to think about this for a while, and I discovered that I say the opposite of whomever I’m talking with at the time . . . so am I bilingual, or just obnoxious? Maybe both?
Up here in Montana, we often refer to them as (and we only say the letters) B-F-W.
I think another interesting poll would be personal bird shorthand names or abbriviations. Our most common are GBH (great blue heron), B-cubed (Brewer’s blackbird), and SKO (for Some Kind Of… pronounced either “skoe”-as in “SKO Gull”, or with a soft-O when another letter is added as in SKOF, for Some Kind of Finch. Very handy when a lot of birds show up and your calling them out to your birding partners.
Mark
[…] He is sure to get us all arguing about his latest post. And he wants all of us to take part in his Pileated Pronunciation Poll. That sounds like a fun way to end a busy birding […]