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Turmeric. May 8, 2016 by languagehat 96 Comments

Time for another LH quiz! I’ve run into a couple of people who say /tɜrˈmɛrɪk/ (“tur-MARE-ik”), with penultimate stress, something not recorded in any of my dictionaries, which have only initial stress — cf. American Heritage, which gives /ˈtɜrmɜrɪk, ˈtuːmɜrɪk/. I’m curious whether this is idiosyncratic or a sign of an alternate pronunciation on the rise, so I put it to the Varied Reader: do you say this word with penultimate stress, or know someone who does?

Incidentally, the etymology is interesting; it’s from Middle English termeryte, derived from French terre mérite and/or New Latin terra merita, ‘turmeric’ (literally ‘merited earth’).

Comments

Cassy says May 8, 2016 at 8:17 pm
TUR-mer-ik here and have never heard it any other way – grew up in Indiana/Kentucky, have lived for extended periods of time in Kansas City and Denver as well.
January First-of-May says May 8, 2016 at 9:22 pm
Token non-native speaker here: never heard of the word before, both pronunciations sound natural enough when I’m trying to sound it out in my head (but my first attempt was penultimate stress, rhyming with “Homeric”), and what does it mean anyway?

EDIT: aah, it means a kind of exotic plant. That explains the initial stress – I thought it was an adjective! Never heard of it before either way.

EDIT 2: oh, it’s curcuma! I know what curcuma is (it’s a pretty common spice), I just had no idea that in English it was called differently.
mollymooly says May 8, 2016 at 9:42 pm
I say /ˈtɜrmərɪk/ and have never noticed /tɜrˈmɛrɪk/ .

My mammy says /ˈtjuːmɜrɪk/. From the etymology it looks like a misspelling pronunciation, but Merriam-Webster lists a variant spelling “tumeric”. Are there people who say /ˈt(j)ʊɹmərick/ ?
kevincure says May 8, 2016 at 9:56 pm
32 year old, from Boston originally. I would say tur-MER-ic, but I am no cook. Asked a similar aged Canadian who knows her way around the kitchen – also tur-MER-ic. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear the first syllable stress, but this sounds much more natural to me on the second.
Eli Nelson says May 8, 2016 at 10:05 pm
It’s not part of my active vocabulary, since I don’t cook much. Either pronunciation sounds natural to me. I’d guess the pronunciation with penult stress is due to analogy with adjectives ending in -ic, which are generally stressed on the penult.
AG says May 8, 2016 at 10:25 pm
TU-meric or TUR-meric here ( = the American Heritage pronunciations)

I could understand how people who’d never heard it spoken might guess that it goes like Homeric, America, barbaric, atmospheric, etc.
Stu Clayton says May 8, 2016 at 10:27 pm
literally ‘merited earth’

Or ‘meritorious’, according to one historical dictionary. Nobody has an explanation on offer. Is turmeric deserving, is it deserved by the discerning ?
Lucy Kemnitzer says May 8, 2016 at 10:32 pm
I had never heard the penultimate stress. I do know people who say it without the first r and with a longer U. But I’m not really astonished that this variation exists, because of an experience with another kitchen herb.

When I first heard my daughter-in-law pronounce marjoram as maJORum I thought it was her own idiosyncrasy and probably derived from reading it before hearing it said, or from her parents’ speech (not native English speakers). Then I found that a lot of people say it that way.

edit: I would say that it means “meritorious,” because turmeric is an earthy-tasting, bright ochre colored root which has a long-established reputation for being outrageously good for the health.
Keith Ivey says May 8, 2016 at 10:57 pm
Another spice with variable stress is oregano, though the variation for it may be more transatlantic.
Ran says May 8, 2016 at 10:58 pm
I always pronounced it “TURmeric”, until about a year ago, when I heard the pronunciation “turMERic” uttered so naturally and confidently that I instantly concluded I must have been pronouncing it wrong my whole life.

I guess I can now go back to saying “TURmeric”.
tangent says May 9, 2016 at 12:53 am
I wonder if the “majorum” speaker’s parents had a language where that /r/ was not present. It’s not in the botanical Latin, and it wasn’t in the old French, so English might be the oddball.

(Heard “turmeric” on the first syllable always, and the penultimate-stressed word definitely sounds like it wants to be an adjective.)
Lucy Kemnitzer says May 9, 2016 at 1:30 am
Well, there isn’t an /r/ in the first syllable in Czech (majoránka), but the accented syllable is still not the one with the O in it. Since she grew up in western Canada, I think that the pronunciation is probably from there.
Lars says May 9, 2016 at 2:56 am
Gurkemeje has penultimate stress. Merian initial.
Vanya says May 9, 2016 at 4:28 am
Native American and I say “TUːmɜrɪk”. It wouldn’t cross my mind to pronounce the “r” in the first syllable and have never heard it pronounced that way or with penultimate stress. But I also don’t cook much, nor do I spend much time discussing cooking.

I also say o-RE-gano. Penultimate stress strikes me as British.
David Marjanović says May 9, 2016 at 4:49 am
Well, there isn’t an /r/ in the first syllable in Czech (majoránka), but the accented syllable is still not the one with the O in it.

It can’t be; Czech mercilessly stresses every word on the first syllable.

Majoran has initial stress in German, but that’s fully explicable from the spelling – -an needs to have at least secondary stress; by virtue of not being -en, it can’t be fully unstressed. Likewise, Curcuma ~ Kurkuma has penultimate stress as follows: 1) Syllabify: /kur.ku.ma/ 2) Assign vowel length under the assumption that every syllable is stressed: /kʊr.kuː.maː/ 3) Long vowels attract stress. Put the stress on the first of them if there aren’t too many: /kʊr.ˈkuː.maː/ 4) Unstressed vowels cannot be long: /kʊr.ˈkuː.ma/

This process would render Oregano as */ˌo.rɛ.ˈgaː.nɔ/. It doesn’t, because we learn this word as an exception (apparently shifting the stress after applying the regular process: the outcome is /ɔ.ˈrɛ.ga.nɔ/ with an irregularly short stressed syllable); I think it’s already an exception in the original Italian.

It wouldn’t cross my mind to pronounce the “r” in the first syllable

Is this the same dissimilation as in Feb’uary and lib’ary?
Eliza says May 9, 2016 at 5:25 am
UK: I’ve always heard the first syllable stressed.
Hans says May 9, 2016 at 5:35 am
This process would render Oregano as */ˌo.rɛ.ˈgaː.nɔ/. It doesn’t, because we learn this word as an exception I didn’t, so it seems I pronounced it wrong all my life. Duden confirms that it’s stressed on the re, but on the few occasions I heard it pronounced, people stressed the ga, where the uninitiatied German speaker would expect the stress to be.
Rick says May 9, 2016 at 6:07 am
I grew up hearing it both ways. I think most people had never heard it any official way, and only saw it in a cookbook, so they just guessed.

Once the television cooking channels became popular, most people started saying it with initial stress.

I noticed this with a few other ingredients, but I can’t recall them all at the moment. Quinoa and cacao for sure (I worked at a small natural market after high school).
Daniel Cavanagh says May 9, 2016 at 6:10 am
I say /ˈt͡ʃʉmɘrɪk/. I’ve also heard /ˈtɜmɘrɪk/. The feel like the last syllable could be /rɘk/ although I’m not sure it’s quite reduced that much.

Never heard penultimate stress!

From Brisbane, Australia
Vanya says May 9, 2016 at 8:14 am
Is this the same dissimilation as in Feb’uary and lib’ary?

My idiolect preserves both “r”s in library. When I was growing up dropping the initial r was heavily stigmatized as childish and teachers and parents would correct older children who did drop it.
Aidan Kehoe says May 9, 2016 at 8:20 am
I say /tʌʳˈmɛɹɪk/, but that’s a spelling pronunciation, I only came across the word as a translation of زردچوبه. Will adopt initial stress post-haste!
languagehat says May 9, 2016 at 8:33 am
I’m glad I asked; clearly there’s a significant minority who use penultimate stress, and the lexicographers just haven’t caught up yet. Paging M-W and AHD!
Greg Pandatshang says May 9, 2016 at 10:27 am
Well, I seem to recall (and hope to be corrected if I’m wrong) that John Cowan has argued that stress in English is penultimate by default. On the other hand, a put-upon-seeming linguistics professor at a small university once advised me that English has default initial stress. So, perhaps the informants here are simply partisans of or the other faction.

I say ˈtɝmɚɨk, personally.
Leslie says May 9, 2016 at 12:07 pm
I know /ˈtjuːmɜrɪk/-sayers but no /tɜrˈmɛrɪk/-sayers, or at least none who have outed themselves.

On the subject of spices, I’ve known some /ˈkʌmᵻn/-ers as well – I’ve always said /ˈkjuːmᵻn/. (Wikipedia informs that the former is British, though my acquaintances are American.) I say /ˈkɑːrdəmɑm/ but /ˈkɑːrdəməm/ seems much more common, and I have an Aussie friend who pronounces it with a schwa in the last syllable, but a final n.
languagehat says May 9, 2016 at 2:37 pm
I’m a /ˈkʌmᵻn/-er myself, but my wife says /ˈkjuːmᵻn/.
anon says May 9, 2016 at 2:45 pm
I’ve usually heard and used TUR-mer-ick, as that’s what my grandmothers and all the older women in the church kitchen said.

The Columbia Journalism Review has a “Language Corner” section on their site, which you might find interesting; it’s at http://www.cjr.org/language_corner/
BWA says May 9, 2016 at 2:55 pm
Tur MER ic. Greater NYC metropolitan area, middle aged. So does my wife. I’ve no clue why. I think I have heard first syllable stress, no clue when or where. Our respective families did not use it while we were growing up. We, on the other hand….

Also cyu min, not cu min. (On reflection, now I feel self conscious, I might go to cu min. Summer is…)

Also TUR bot, not Tur bow. (I refuse to budge on this one.)

For the fish, that is.
dw says May 9, 2016 at 3:33 pm
Only ever said (and heard) /ˈtɜrmərɪk/ . My wife’s family has an Indian background, so we say the word quite a lot.
David Gorsline says May 9, 2016 at 5:43 pm
I’ve never heard it pronounced with the stress on the second syllable, but now that I know the derivation, I’m going to start saying it that way!
Lucy Kemnitzer says May 9, 2016 at 7:36 pm
“Czech mercilessly stresses every word on the first syllable.”

Except, she mutters bitterly, for when it doesn’t.

Czech seems to me to be more regular than many languages but it doesn’t cut the casual learner any slack on any front, including this one.
James says May 9, 2016 at 8:56 pm
I rarely speak or hear this word, but would stress the second syllable. I asked my very culinary wife how she pronounces it, and she first said TUR-mer-ic, and than said, “Or TYOO-mer-ic.” So check all the boxes on the form, I guess.
Charles Perry says May 10, 2016 at 10:14 am
I have always said TURmeric, but food words seem particularly susceptible to weird pronunciations. I very often hear CULLinary for CUlinary (contamination with colander or scullery?), anEEce for ANise, COOmin for CUmin (which is CUMmin on the other side of the pond, of course), 4-syllabic papArika and vinegArette, shallOTT for SHALLot, legOOM for LEGyoom and bruSHetta for bruSCHetta (viz. brusketta). And licorish for licorice is as nearly universal as groshery, Some of these pronunciations come from restaurants, where cooks find themselves using ingredients they didn’t grow up with and assume that a counter-intuitive quasi-foreign pronunciation must be correct. AnEEce, COOmin, shallOTT and legOOm in particular smell like hypercorrection. Guy Fieri of the TV show “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” is clearly aware of the correct pronunciations but he makes a smug and knowing point of using the non-standard ones current in restaurants, while he pedantically flaps the r in his last name. This bothers me so much that I actually stopped watching the show.
languagehat says May 10, 2016 at 10:29 am
I very often hear CULLinary for CUlinary (contamination with colander or scullery?), … COOmin for CUmin (which is CUMmin on the other side of the pond, of course) …. And licorish for licorice is as nearly universal as groshery

I say CULLinary, CUMmin, and licorish myself, and they are all standard US pronunciations — check your dictionary!
John Cowan says May 10, 2016 at 10:51 am
AnEEce, COOmin, shallOTT and legOOm in particular smell like hypercorrection.

Naah. W.S. Gilbert’s “The Yarn of the Nancy Belle” (1866), reprinted in the Bab Ballads:

“So he boils the water, and takes the salt And the pepper in portions true (Which he never forgot), and some chopped shallot, And some sage and parsley too.

Obviously shallot has final stress (unusually for BrE), like forgot. The folk process that led to my own recitation version has reversed the two half-lines: “some chopped shallot, which he never forgot”.
Charles Perry says May 10, 2016 at 10:55 am
I have also heard CULLinary in England, despite the fact that the OED lists CUlinary first, but it just makes me bridle and I will not have it — only word in which u in an accented open syllable gets pronounced uh. We don’t say cuppola for cupola or cubbicle for either cubicle or cubical.
mollymooly says May 10, 2016 at 11:44 am
“And licorish for licorice is as nearly universal as groshery”. Is that /ˈgroʊʃərɨ/ or /ˈgrɒʃərɨ/ ? I don’t believe I’ve never heard either, though I often ate lickrish as a child.
languagehat says May 10, 2016 at 11:50 am
The former.
John Cowan says May 10, 2016 at 12:05 pm
I say /ˈgroʊsri/ myself.
Eli Nelson says May 10, 2016 at 12:24 pm
For me grocery may have /ʃ/ or /s/, but it’s a disyllable either way. I haven’t heard of any pronunciations with /ɒ/. Apparently, some people have /ʃ/ not only in grocery, but also in nursery and anniversary. (But it’s much less common for the latter two words). Information from Harvard Dialect Survey results.
Lazar says May 10, 2016 at 1:15 pm
I say grocery, nursery and anniversary all with /səɹi/. (I think we’ve discussed this before.) The /ʃ/ forms aren’t very common here, probably owing to the high rate of non-rhoticity. And even nationally, ‘groshery’ is only used by about half of the population – not at all like licorice, in which /ʃ/ really is universal.

For culinary and cumin, I have /ʌ/ like Hat. The former case is inconsistent with how Latin u tends to be treated in English, though it is consistent with how the other Latin vowels are treated. I also have /æ/ in basil, even though /eɪ/ may be more common in the US.
languagehat says May 10, 2016 at 1:32 pm
I used to have /æ/ in basil, but I’ve changed to /eɪ/ under the influence of my wife.
jamessal says May 10, 2016 at 10:33 pm
First syllable stress only, hearing and (obviously then) speaking.
AntC says May 11, 2016 at 7:17 pm
BrE: always pronounced it TOOmeric and spelt it tumeric. (I first came across the spice early 70’s in Indian cookery, student job in a local restaurant London suburbs, sikhs from New Delhi.)

Later I came across the spelling turmeric; now my pronunciation varies rather randomly, but always stress on first syllable.
mollymooly says May 12, 2016 at 4:44 pm
None of those British dictionaries that attempt to cover US English (onelook and LPD) records [ʃ] in “grocery” (in US or UK English). Are MW and AHD generally more diligent in covering less-common/more-deprecated pronunciations, or is US groshery just a UK blind spot (deaf spot)?
languagehat says May 12, 2016 at 4:46 pm
Probably a little of each.
Lazar says May 12, 2016 at 5:50 pm
I wouldn’t put too much stock in American pronunciations listed in British dictionaries – I’ve seen too many cases where they’ve clearly failed to check for differences. For example, Cambridge’s online dictionary and Oxford’s online learner’s dictionary both have Americans saying supreme with a full vowel in the first syllable.
mollymooly says May 13, 2016 at 7:29 am
I’m more surprised at Longman. John Wells is relatively good for nonstandard and US, but I guess not for nonstandard US.
Vanya says May 13, 2016 at 8:30 am
For example, Cambridge’s online dictionary and Oxford’s online learner’s dictionary both have Americans saying supreme with a full vowel in the first syllable.

I am an American, and the full vowel seems correct to me, especially in combinations like “supreme leader”.
languagehat says May 13, 2016 at 8:55 am
Well, you may use it, and I’m sure others do, but I’m pretty sure it’s not the most common. I personally never use it, not even in “supreme leader.”
John Cowan says May 13, 2016 at 9:55 am
AHD5 lists only the FOOT vowel; MW gives a choice of FOOT or schwa. Both are reduced vowels relative to BrE GOOSE, but one is more reduced than the other.
languagehat says May 13, 2016 at 10:21 am
True; I guess I generally use the FOOT vowel.
Kate B says May 13, 2016 at 11:11 am
I (UK) have always heard and said it with the accent on the first syllable.

Another problematic culinary word is “baklava”. My instinct would have been to put the accent on the second syllable until I heard the proprietor of a Greek food stall say BAKlava.
Lazar says May 13, 2016 at 11:20 am
I say that one as [ˈbɑːkləˌvɑː]. A word that I’m still unsure about is gyro; one online dictionary attests [ˈdʒɪɚoʊ], which might be a decent compromise pronunciation.
languagehat says May 13, 2016 at 11:41 am
We talked about gyros and their pronunciation back in 2007.
Lameen says May 13, 2016 at 12:16 pm
“baklava”:

Well, in Arabic it’s stressed on the second syllable ([bʌq’læ:wʌ]), and in Turkish I think it’s stressed on the third. So take your pick…
David Marjanović says May 14, 2016 at 9:49 am
Never mind “supreme leader”, what about the Supreme Court? Or about Vermin Supreme, the presidential candidate?

in Turkish I think it’s stressed on the third

Maybe not: it has reached the Balkans with second-syllable stress. I expect first-syllable stress in Macedonian, where the third-to-last syllable is regularly stressed…
languagehat says May 14, 2016 at 9:57 am
Maybe not

The official stress is on the third syllable; you can hear it around the nine-second mark in this video (stick with it for mouth-watering trays of the stuff). But conversationally it often gets retracted to the first syllable, as at the ten-second mark of this one. You will never hear it on the second syllable.
John Cowan says May 14, 2016 at 10:37 am
Turkish has default final stress, says WP, except “forms including suffixes with inherent stress [or lack of it], adverbs, proper names, and some loanwords (particularly from Italian and Greek)” Proper names (including loanword names) in particular follow a different stress pattern: on the antepenult if it is heavy and the penult is light, and otherwise on the penult. This stress, called Sezer stress after its discoverer, does not shift when suffixes are added.
Eli Nelson says June 9, 2016 at 2:04 am
Recently I learned of another oddity like “culinary”: “truculent,” where the first syllable may have a long or short “u.”
juha says June 9, 2016 at 2:49 am
How do you say brusque?
Eli Nelson says June 9, 2016 at 2:59 am
Oh, /brʌsk/. I see some people also say /bruːsk/ or /brʊsk/. The situation with this word is a bit different from “culinary” and “truculent,” seeing as the “u” is in an orthographically closed syllable.
George Gibbard says June 9, 2016 at 3:56 am
> Sezer stress

Oy, vey İ́zmir.
languagehat says June 9, 2016 at 8:54 am
Adana what you’re talking about.
Jamie says September 15, 2016 at 5:33 pm
It’s called tur-MER-ic among herbalists in California.
John Cowan says November 17, 2016 at 7:09 pm
In Tolkien’s assonating poem “Errantry”, we find the lines:

He perfumed her with marjoram, And cardamom and lavender.

which only work if all three nouns have initial stress.
alex says February 23, 2018 at 7:24 pm
since childhood i have always said [‘tɚ.mɚ.ɹɪk] (TUR.mur.ick). we often cooked indian food at home so had the spice around. i never heard anyone pronounce it [‘tu.mɚ.ɹɪk] (TU.mur.ick) until maybe 5 years ago and was totally mystified. now suddenly it seems like almost everyone pronounces it that way and i basically never hear anyone say tur.mur.ick – i was like “am i taking crazy pills?!”

i’ve never heard anyone say [tɚ’me.ɹɪk] (tur.MARE.ick) but i would definitely prefer hearing that to hearing TU.mur.ic.
Dorrri says February 23, 2019 at 7:19 pm
I have always pronounced it as “too MARE ic”. I am 55 and live in Pittsburgh, PA. I have lived in both TN and Boston, but don’t recall picking it up anywhere in particular. I do keep the first R silent.
M says August 11, 2021 at 6:30 pm
I’ve pronounced it with both “r”s and second-syllable emphasis since the sixties in California based on spelling and lack of any reason to except from pronunciation of English comparables.
John Cowan says August 11, 2021 at 10:37 pm
I suspect tumeric is the same long-distance loss of /r/ in rhotic varieties of English that brings us govener, libary, Febuary, seckatary. (I have the first three but not the last.)
Nita says March 9, 2022 at 4:28 pm
It is pronounced “too-marik” in New Zealand and Australia, so that must be the correct way to say. End of story.
languagehat says March 9, 2022 at 4:47 pm
Nice to have the issue finally resolved!
Noetica says March 9, 2022 at 6:28 pm
It is pronounced “too-marik” in New Zealand and Australia

… by some. Others of us? No. And many of us here insist on stressing “oregano” as in Spanish (matching Italian and Latin) on the penultimate. Cardamo[m,n], cumin, liquorice, and others noted above are perennially contested whenever people note such things or care at all, which is depressingly uncommon. As for “culinary”, there is no resolution in prospect; but most people say CULLinery. Most of us above twenty-five say HOMMage, not “oMAZH” as if it had reverted to being a French word after long anglicisation. And similarly, we say HERB as in HERBert. (I’d type more on these weighty topics, and more nuancedly, but for a little while my right hand is out of service following surgery.)
languagehat says March 9, 2022 at 6:46 pm
And many of us here insist on stressing “oregano” as in Spanish (matching Italian and Latin) on the penultimate.

Did you mean to write antepenultimate? That’s certainly the case in Spanish (orégano), Italian (origano), and Latin (orīganum, from ὀρίγανον).
Noetica says March 9, 2022 at 8:37 pm
Oops. Of course I meant antepenultimate. Thanks! Distracted by difficulties here. (We should note quite incidentally, however, that the Greek diacritic is not a guide.)
David Marjanović says March 9, 2022 at 8:48 pm
most people say CULLinery

I would never have guessed this even existed.
AntC says March 9, 2022 at 8:50 pm
It is pronounced “too-marik” in New Zealand and Australia,

Is it? Not consistently what I observe, as @Noetica points out. If you’re going by habits in Auckland (or Sydney or Melbourne) beware those are cities of many immigrants from other English-speaking countries (including the Indian sub-continent). I don’t think there’s a reliable way to get the ‘local’ pronunciation for such an international word.
Brett says March 9, 2022 at 10:25 pm
@David Marjanović: That pronunciation of culinary is actually quite common.

@Noetica: As to the pronunciation of homage, for a lot of people (including myself), it depends on the intended meaning, described (if not confirmed) here.
languagehat says March 9, 2022 at 11:15 pm
That pronunciation of culinary is actually quite common.

It is in fact my own.
Keith Ivey says March 9, 2022 at 11:34 pm
I say OM-uhj. I think most Americans don’t pronounce the h. I would say oh-MAHZH only I were reading something pretentious where it was spelled with two m’s.
J S Shipman says January 18, 2024 at 5:41 pm
“Turmeric,” is 3 syllables, like, “”Umbrella,” is. As in, “Umbrella,” the stress is in the middle syllable. The “R” is silent in, “turmeric.”.

TV is trying to change this but, “Turmeric,” follows the syllabication rules for 3 syllable words.

Lots of people say they have only heard it with the first syllable stressed,, breaking the rules of syllabication, and they put the stress on the first syllable, incorrectly., or, because of a suffix, or,as a dialect of the Midwest. TV and internet are enhancing that incorrect pronunciation.

Remember,r the first “R,” is silent in, “turmeric.”.

We have learned these rules in school. Some 3-syllable words stress the first syllable but that is when the first two syllables make up the word. Examples: order, orderly; garden, gardener’ manage, manager; silent, silently. You see the suffix doesn’t change the stress to the middle syllable. In words like turmeric and umbrella, there is no suffix to change the stress, so they follow the rule, and, the middle syllable is stressed.
David Marjanović says January 18, 2024 at 8:04 pm
I would never have guessed this even existed.

…and I already forgot!

In words like turmeric and umbrella, there is no suffix to change the stress

That depends on how far you go back – -ella is in fact just such a suffix. Literally, an umbrella is a “little shade”.

(…No, you don’t need to put a comma in front of every set of quotation marks, while I’m at it.)
AntC says January 18, 2024 at 8:46 pm
@J S Shipman, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m Brit born and bred; I’ve always stressed ‘turmeric’ on the first syllable. Schooling didn’t give me any stupid rule.

I say ‘too-meric’. I’m aware others say more like ‘turn-meric’. So what? That’s a reasonable stab _if_ the word’s from kurkum.

Welcome to the Hattery, by the way. We are not the language police.
ktschwarz says January 18, 2024 at 9:17 pm
Apparently Samuel Johnson watched TV, used the internet, and lived in the Midwest! Who knew?
AntC says January 18, 2024 at 9:24 pm
-ella is in fact just such a suffix.

Indeed. I wonder where JSS expects we should place the stress in paella or patella (which is a doublet) or Coachella?
MMcM says January 18, 2024 at 11:11 pm
No seems to have mentioned the possibility of only two syllables, which I think is pretty much how we usually pronounce it here. Particularly before the bottle with its label to show the spelling is out of the spice drawer. TOMB-rick gets a few ghits for this. I appreciate that it may just be a matter of degree.
AntC says January 18, 2024 at 11:19 pm
Literally, an umbrella is a “little shade”.

So it ought to be superfluous in English: we have ‘sunshade’ with perfectly respectable English roots.

As it is, we use “umbrella” to mean ‘parapluie’.
Brett says January 19, 2024 at 1:26 pm
It was supposedly “traditional” in educated English to distinguish an umbrella (for keeping off the rain) from a parasol (for keeping off the sun). I don’t know how many people there really were in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who wouldn’t use umbrella for a sunshade, but there were apparently some.
rozele says January 19, 2024 at 1:40 pm
aside from “beach umbrellas”, which are rarely para anything but sol, i think that’s the distinction in my world (which may involve more parasols than is entirely typical in the u.s. northeast).
Ryan says January 19, 2024 at 6:34 pm
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a parasol in the wild, other than a beach umbrella fixed in the sand.

Rozele, what is the scene in which you see them?
rozele says January 19, 2024 at 7:12 pm
various combinations of elevated style and outdoor life: certain picnic crews in prospect park in the summer; some Celebrate Brooklyn and SummerStage audiences; the Mermaid Parade in coney island; beach goths (goths, generally); rural queer & trans gatherings; the walkways of cherry grove.
J.W. Brewer says January 19, 2024 at 7:20 pm
RItual parasols are a thing in Ethiopian religious culture, including (as this link with pictures informs me) in the Jewish subset now mostly relocated to Israel. https://jerusalemhillsdailyphoto.blogspot.com/2013/01/ethiopian-ceremonial-umbrellas.html I expect you can find them in the U.S. in the Ethiopian (and probably also Eritrean) Christian diasporas, although I can’t swear I’ve seen them with my own eyes.
Lars Mathiesen (he/him/his) says January 19, 2024 at 9:25 pm
Paraply. Parasol. Danish. Paraguas. Sombrilla. Spanish.

Neither language is taken in by the umbrella conspiracy. What does DE have to say in their defense?
David Marjanović says January 19, 2024 at 9:58 pm
Regenschirm, Sonnenschirm…
Y says January 19, 2024 at 11:42 pm
I don’t know how many people there really were in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who wouldn’t use umbrella for a sunshade, but there were apparently some.

I imagine parasols used by Better People were made of silk and such, not sturdy enough to withstand heavy rain, but lighter and so easier to hold up for a long time.

On the other hand, given English weather, wouldn’t a parasol often be called on to be an emergency umbrella?
Ryan says January 20, 2024 at 1:14 am
>certain picnic crews…

I wasn’t expecting such a long list. At least in New York, that seems pretty widespread, in its own niche. I guess it’s possible that my narrow wanderings in Chicago just haven’t led me to the right places.
rozele says January 20, 2024 at 5:13 am
my one antique parasol would not hold up to a fog – it’s definitely not adaptable for pluie of any kind.

@JWB: there are some amazing ritual parasols in west africa, too – i think from the akan world, though there are trinidadian old mas’ and brazilian candomblé versions that make me assume there’s a yoruba connection too.

@Ryan: it’s widespread from some very particular angles; probably next to invisible for plenty of other ones.