Compendium of Pesticide Common Names

British pronunciation of common names of pesticides


Common names of pesticides include some syllables that are familiar to chemists, but members of the general public often have no idea how to pronounce them. Only a few pesticide names find their way into general-purpose printed or online dictionaries that indicate pronunciation.

The pronunciation of common names obviously varies widely in the many countries in which they are used, and so it is not feasible to include pronunciations in ISO 1750 Pesticides and other agrochemicals – Common names.

At one time, the British Standards Institution (BSI) maintained BS 1831 Common names for pesticides in parallel with ISO 1750, and in the 1980’s started work on a revision that was to include an indication of the British pronunciation of each name. The members of a BSI sub-committee devised a British pronunciation for each common name when it was approved.

Between November 2007 and January 2008, these unpublished BSI pronunciations were added to the data sheets. Using these pronunciations as a guide, British pronunciations have now been added to almost all of the other data sheets.

The specification of the pronunciation system was published in BS 1831 : Part 1 : 1985 Appendix C, on which the following is based.

Guide to British pronunciation of pesticide common names

Stress

Stressed syllables are marked with HTML <em> tags, which in most Web browsers produce italic type.

Consonants

Most consonants are given their usual pronunciations, subject to the following:

ConsonantsPronunciation
galways hard, as in good, not as in gem
halways aspirated
jalways as in juniper
thalways as in thick, not as in then

To ensure clarity, the pronunciation of certain other consonants is defined as follows:

ConsonantsPronunciation
chsoft ch as in church
ff as in fox
ph as in photo
khard c as in cup
hard ch as in chemist
kwqu as in queen
ksx as in ox
ngng as in ring
ssoft c as in cent
s as in sound
shsh as in ship

Vowels

Vowel sounds are represented and pronounced as follows:

LettersPronunciation
aas in aroma, gather, lemon
ǎas in hat, rat
āas in day, reign, tame
aras in calm, far
āras in hair, there
ěas in bed, death, get
ēas in decent, pea, see
ēēras in beer, near, severe
eras in bird, earn, her
ǐas in begin, it, myth
īas in file, ice, sign
     
LettersPronunciation
īras in choir, fire, quiet
ǒas in hot, on, wash
ōas in cocoa, no, though
oias in join
ōlas in hole
ooas in blue, fruit, moon
oras in ball, board, fore
uas in full, good, put
ǔas in glove, son, sulk
ūas in tune
ūras in pure

Examples

The following examples show the pronunciation of certain syllables and words:

SyllablesPronunciation
amino-a--nō-
carbkarb
chlorklor
-cyclen--klěn
dino--nō-
imino-ǐ--nō-
-ine-ēn
-thion-thī-ǒn
-uron-ūr-ǒn
     
WordsPronunciation
acetalǎs-ǐt-ǎl
acetaldehydeǎs-ǐt-ǎl-dǐ-hīd
acetamidea-sēt-a-mīd
acetanilideǎs-ǐt-ǎn-ǐ-līd
acetateǎs-ǐ-tāt
acetica--tǐk
acetoneǎs-ǐ-tōn
acetylǎs-ǐ-tīl
acetylenea-sět-ǐ-lēn
butyl-tīl
ethoxyǐth-ǒk-sē
ethylē-thīl
ethyleneěth-ǐl-ēn
fluorinefloo-a-rēn
furylfūr-īl
methoxymǐth-ǒk-sē
methyl-thīl
phenoxyfǐ-nǒk-sē
phenyl-nīl

Numerals and initials

Some old common names consist of numerals followed by initials, or of initials only, e.g. 2,4-DEP and TEPP. In such cases, each numeral and initial should be pronounced separately, i.e. too for dē ē pē (not twenty-four dep) and tē ē pē pē (not tep).


Why not use IPA?

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is designed for representing pronunciation, but with versions of Microsoft Windows before Vista the necessary characters are not included in the core fonts and Internet Explorer 7 displays them poorly. The accented characters used in the Compendium are present in Windows XP and Mac OS X 10.4 and later versions, and so most people will be able to see them.

IPA equivalents may be added when most people are able to see them properly in the following table.

SyllablesPronunciationIPA
acetateǎ-sǐ-tātˈasɪteɪt
acetica--tǐcəˈsiːtɪk
butyl-tīlˈbjuːtʌɪl
carbkarbkɑːb
chlorklorklɔː
-cyclen--klěn-ˈsʌɪklɛn
dino--nō-ˈdʌɪnəʊ-
ethylē-thīlˈɛθʌɪl
furylfūr-īlˈfjʊərʌɪl
-ine-ēn-iːn
methyl-thīlˈmɛθʌɪl
-thion-thī-ǒn-ˈθʌɪɒn
-uron-ūr-ǒn-ˈjʊrɒn

Windows Vista and Windows 7 with Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 2 or Opera 9 (or later versions) can display the IPA characters properly.


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A component of the Compendium of Pesticide Common Names