Pronunciation of "fungicide"

John

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Apr 26, 2014, 7:09:06 AM4/26/14

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In British English, is "fungicide" pronounced with a hard or soft "G".

Google tells me that either pronunciation is acceptable but I want to use
the right one!

Guy Barry

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Apr 26, 2014, 7:13:03 AM4/26/14

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"John" wrote in message news:XnsA31B7B9...@207.246.207.168...

>
>In British English, is "fungicide" pronounced with a hard or soft "G".
>
>Google tells me that either pronunciation is acceptable but I want to use
>the right one!

I personally use a soft "g", on the grounds that the default pronunciation
of "g" before "i" is soft. I can't tell you which is "right", though - they
appear to be equally acceptable.

--
Guy Barry

CDB

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Apr 26, 2014, 9:01:28 AM4/26/14

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Do you have a preference for "fungi"? I say [fVndZaI], not [fVNgaI]
("fun-jye", not "fung-guy"), so it's a "soft 'g'" in fungicide too. It
seems reasonable to keep to the same convention in both.

For the record, I consider the "soft 'g'" correct before front vowels in
learned words (most of which have at least passed through Latin),
because that version follows the sound changes that were made to Latin
words before they were borrowed into English; but many people,
especially young ones, use the "hard 'g'" in unfamiliar words and will
think you're odd if you don't too. You can't please everybody, so you
might as well please yourself.

I should add that I'm Canadian, so not British but tolerably cognizant
of British usage.

Don Phillipson

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Apr 26, 2014, 9:56:09 AM4/26/14

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"John" <inv...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:XnsA31B7B9...@207.246.207.168...

> In British English, is "fungicide" pronounced with a hard or soft "G".
>
> Google tells me that either pronunciation is acceptable but I want to use
> the right one!

This decision means you may have to take up English class politics or
regional politics. The fungicide case (hard or soft G) is one of a whole
class of linguistic variations, that are identified by some (but not all)
Englishmen as badges of either class or regional loyalty: i.e. choosing
one pronunciation identifies you (for some people) as a Class Enemy.
Nothing any of us can do can prevent this, but beginners (and everyone
is a beginner at some time) deserve to be warned beforehand.
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

Peter Duncanson [BrE]

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Apr 26, 2014, 10:11:34 AM4/26/14

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I use a hard "g" in "fungus" and in its plural "fungi", and in
fungicide, fungicidal, etc.

--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.english.usage)

musika

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Apr 26, 2014, 10:16:15 AM4/26/14

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Eh, Oh, 'ell.

--
Ray
UK

Guy Barry

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Apr 26, 2014, 10:19:43 AM4/26/14

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"Don Phillipson" wrote in message news:ljgejq$de6$1...@news.albasani.net...

Come again? The choice of hard or soft "g" in "fungicide" is an English
class shibboleth? I can think of some words that might function that way
(like "garage"), but "fungicide" is such a rarely used word that I doubt
very much whether the issue of its pronunciation even registers with the
overwhelming majority of speakers. I imagine most of them don't use it at
all.

--
Guy Barry

Peter Duncanson [BrE]

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Apr 26, 2014, 11:05:23 AM4/26/14

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On Sat, 26 Apr 2014 15:16:15 +0100, musika <mUs...@NOSPAMexcite.com>
wrote:

<smile> I'm not saying my way is "right" or "best".

Daniel James

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Apr 26, 2014, 11:50:03 AM4/26/14

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In article <XnsA31B7B9...@207.246.207.168>, John wrote:
> In British English, is "fungicide" pronounced with a hard or soft "G".

As a British English speaker, I pronounce it with a hard 'g' (as in
"fungus" and "fungi", not as in "fungible"). I'm sure some of us don't,
though.

Cheers,
Daniel.

Jerry Friedman

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Apr 26, 2014, 11:50:25 AM4/26/14

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Then maybe you should warn him. Which pronunciation goes with which
classes and regions?

--
Jerry Friedman

Curlytop

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Apr 26, 2014, 1:27:37 PM4/26/14

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John set the following eddies spiralling through the space-time continuum:

> In British English, is "fungicide" pronounced with a hard or soft "G".
>
> Google tells me that either pronunciation is acceptable but I want to use
> the right one!

I pronounce the NG as NG in "sing" so the G is neither hard nor soft, it's
incorporated into the N.
--
ξ: ) Proud to be curly

Interchange the alphabetic letter groups to reply

Robert Bannister

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Apr 26, 2014, 9:15:03 PM4/26/14

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I would say hard g, because that is how we say "fungus". Still, I'm a
person who say "analogous" with a soft g on analogy with, as you might
guess, "analogy".

--
Robert Bannister - 1940-71 SE England
1972-now W Australia

Robert Bannister

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Apr 26, 2014, 9:23:00 PM4/26/14

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Upper Class: fung - ghee - side
Middle Class: fun - jee - side
Pleb: Some of that stuff like what you gave us last year

John Varela

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Apr 26, 2014, 9:31:51 PM4/26/14

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I use a hard g as an analog with, as you might guess, "analogue".

--
John Varela

annily

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Apr 26, 2014, 9:58:10 PM4/26/14

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So do I, Down Under.

--
Lifelong resident of Adelaide, South Australia

Pavel314

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Apr 27, 2014, 7:23:50 AM4/27/14

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In Midwest US English, we generally use the hard G to correspond to the stem word "fungus."

George Hardy

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Apr 28, 2014, 2:54:35 AM4/28/14

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"J" as in Jesus; not "G" as in God. -- to quote Harold Geneen.