🚀 go-pugleaf

davidf@mks.com (David J. Fiander) writes:

>According to 70465.203@compuserve.com:
>>Neither of your counter examples applies. They are both *acronyms*
>>constructed from the initial letters of a phrase. In such cases, prounciation
>>is pretty much determined by what it looks like.
>>
>>On the other hand, "sysop" is formed by combining *syllables*. It's in
>>effect a contraction of the words "system operator". And the path may 
>>have been that system got frequently shortened to "sys" and operator
>>got shortened to "op". *Then* they got combined.

>So I own a 2400bps Mah-Deem, then?

No. Look at it this way. "sysop" is composes of two syslabbles:
"sys" and "op". There is *no* way to keep that sylabification *and*
to pronounce it "sigh-sop" (that would require it to break into 
"sy" and "sop")

"Modem" is a bit more difficult, because they didn't break the
words at syllable lines. Insted we got "mo" and "dem" (or perhaps
"mod" and "dem" with a "d" dropped). But it's still clear that
the word was assembled mo-dem, not mod-em. 

So it's really an issue of where the syllable breaks go! 

-- 
Leonard Erickson		      leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com
CIS: [70465,203]			 70465.203@compuserve.com
FIDO:   1:105/56	 Leonard.Erickson@f56.n105.z1.fidonet.org
(The CIS address is checked daily. The others infrequently)