I’m middle-aged, well-read, extensive vocabulary, read dictionaries for fun. And I had no idea until last night that “cay” was pronounced the same as “key”. (Apparently “kay” is a secondary, acceptable pronunciation…but still.)
:smack:
I always saw it spelled as Quay, but knew it was pronounced “key”.
It’s O-cay, er, kay.
:eek: Holy crap! That’s two in one day!
Actually, they’re two different things: quay = dock; cay = island; but both are pronounced “kee”. I’ve always pronounced them as “kway” and “kay”.
(actually, the opportunities for saying “quay” out loud have been virtually nil. But that’s how I pronounce it in my head.)
(and I assume that the Florida Keys are actually the Florida Cays)
I’m an English teacher and I just learned today that zoology is pronounced, “zow _ ology”.
I didn’t know until Kelsey Grammer ranted about it on Leno that flaccid is pronounced flak-sid, not flas-sid.
I was just about to do another :eek: , but looked it up. flas-sid is listed first; flak-sid second.
Really? Well, now I don’t feel like such an idiot. Except for accepting what Grammer said. 
How about mauve? Is it mawve or mowve?
Wow. My high school biology teacher, who was a zoology major in college and had a masters degree in the same, pronounced it zo-ology. No “zow” about it.
I majored in zoology in college and all my instructors called it “zoh-ology” (long o, then short o).
A Zoo is called that because it’s short for “Zo-ological” Gardens.
So really it ought to be a “Zo”.
Or a “Zo-o”.
zow = zo
I just did a bad time thinking of how to write it.
:smack:
You mean “zoh”? I see “zow” and I think, “Rhymes with ‘cow’.”
All my zoology professors, and dictionary.com say it’s zoo-ology. Until you’ve got a cite that says different, I’m gonna stick to the old way.
I came here to mention that.
I just made that comment to a coworker a week or so ago.
Cite (edited to approximate special characters):
My dictionary lists it the other way, but in the end it really just comes down to Kelsey Grammer having an appropriately spelled last name.
Wait. What? Quay is not pronounced kway? But it’s such a cool word that way! <resolves to continue to say it that way, no matter what>
I knew cay=key and I knew about flaccid because of a book I read long ago (never mind), but quay? Key is just boring. There aren’t enough qu- words as it is. I feel a grassroots movement starting–let’s take back the kw- and starting quacking about this on the quay!
<goes off to make picket signs>