According to Colwell

It seems like scientists have a different meaning for perfectly ordinary words. To an astronomer, for example, “eccentricity” does not mean an inclination to strange behavior. Nor does “inclination” refer to a tendency. There are also the anomalies: true anomaly, mean anomaly, and eccentric anomaly. None of these are anomalous or eccentric. And don’t get me started on wakes. “Eccentricity” is one we deal with all the time. It simply describes how much an object’s orbit differs from a circular orbit. I have noticed an interesting trend among my younger colleagues the last few years: they pronounce “eccentric” either “eh-sentric” or “ee-sentric”. Call me old-fashioned, or maybe eccentric, but I can’t stand by and see a perfectly good double-c get the s-treatment. This ode is dedicated to the eccentrics.

Ode to Eccentricy
by Josh Colwell

“Eccentricity” has two c’s
like “occipital” and “accidentally”.
“Eccentricity” has two c’s
sandwiched between two short e’s.

Syllablically speaking,
If one can do such a thing,
That’s an “ek” then a “cen”:
Two c’s: no redundancy.
To skip one of those c’s
While maybe a breeze
Fills the ears and the brain with a bit of a quease.

Do our cars A-celerate when we step on the gas?
Only acceleration allows us to pass.
Howard Hughes’ bottled pee
Was no sign of E-centricity.

But we don’t need to rely on our O-cipital lobes,
Don’t take it from me,
Check the OED
The word is pronounced “EK-sen-TRISS-ity”

While soft c sounds may be palatable,
“E-centricity” is just not A-ceptable.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 17th, 2006 at 11:42 am and is filed under Astronomy, English. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.