How do you pronounce "nihilist"?

[dbrich...@lbl.gov]

I hope you are all well & in good spirits.

So, how do *you* pronounce "nihilist"?

Thank you in advance for anything you may choose to share.

(As an aside, have you seen the fine arts film "The Big Lebowski"? If so, what did you think of it?)

--
Brett (in Berkeley, California, USA)
On Twitter at:
http://twitter.com/BerkeleyBrett
(You don't have to be a Twitter user to view this stream of ideas!)

[Iskandar Baharuddin]

On 16/06/14 5:23 PM, dbrich...@lbl.gov wrote:
> I hope you are all well & in good spirits.
>
> So, how do *you* pronounce "nihilist"?
>
> Thank you in advance for anything you may choose to share.
>
> (As an aside, have you seen the fine arts film "The Big Lebowski"? If so, what did you think of it?)
>

Sorry for not using ASCI IPA:

knee-hill-ist.

--
Salaam, Izzy

Ciri sa-bumi, cara sa-desa. (Sundanese proverb)
"People are pretty much the same around the world, but the way they do
things depends on where they come from."

[Derek Turner]

On Mon, 16 Jun 2014 02:23:10 -0700, dbrichardson wrote:

> So, how do *you* pronounce "nihilist"?

(BrE) knee-hill-ist. Because I sing a lot of Church Latin it would not
occur to me to pronounce it any other way.

I have heard others use nigh-hill-ist, and Chambers 20th Century gives
this as the only pronunciation, as does the Shorter Oxford, so I guess my
instincts fail me here and this latter is "correct". I should remember
change may ways.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Monday, June 16, 2014 5:23:10 AM UTC-4, dbrich...@lbl.gov wrote:

> So, how do *you* pronounce "nihilist"?

NIGH-uh-list. How else? It ain't Latin.

> (As an aside, have you seen the fine arts film "The Big Lebowski"? If so, what did you think of it?)

Relevance?

[Derek Turner]

On Mon, 16 Jun 2014 04:24:30 -0700, Peter T. Daniels wrote:

> It ain't Latin.

It ain't?

[Jerry Friedman]

On 6/16/14 3:23 AM, dbrich...@lbl.gov wrote:
> I hope you are all well & in good spirits.
>
> So, how do *you* pronounce "nihilist"?
>
> Thank you in advance for anything you may choose to share.

/'naI@,lIst/ "NIGH-a-list". The last vowel might be a barred-i or a schwa.

> (As an aside, have you seen the fine arts film

Is that what it was?

> "The Big Lebowski"? If so, what did you think of it?)

Silly, but had its fun moments. Jeff Bridges was great.

--
Jerry Friedman

[James Hogg]

No, it would have been "nihilista" if the word had existed in Latin.

--
James

[Derek Turner]

Fair enough but in Chambers it is listed as a derivative of the main entry
'nihil' which (as Chambers says) is Latin. But even that they pronounce
nigh-hill. Nevertheless in Church Latin we sing knee-hil or knee-heel,
which turned out to be a 'false friend' to me.

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

On 2014-06-16 14:15:59 +0200, Jerry Friedman <jerry_f...@yahoo.com> said:

> On 6/16/14 3:23 AM, dbrich...@lbl.gov wrote:
>> I hope you are all well & in good spirits.
>>
>> So, how do *you* pronounce "nihilist"?
>>
>> Thank you in advance for anything you may choose to share.
>
> /'naI@,lIst/ "NIGH-a-list". The last vowel might be a barred-i or a schwa.

That's how I say it (on the rare occasions when I say it at all).


--
athel

[Peter T. Daniels]

Whether it's "knee-hill-ist" or "nigh-hill-ist," you stress it on the
second syllable????? In English, h doesn't occur at the start of an
unstressed syllable after a vowel. (The Estonian-origin phonetician
Ilse Lehiste observed that English-speakers can't pronounce her name,
LEH-hiss-tuh, but always say luh-HISS-tuh.)

[Peter T. Daniels]

How does "nihil" occur in English?

Some Ecclesiastical Latins use "miki," so I would expect "nikil" in those
usages.

[Derek Turner]

On Mon, 16 Jun 2014 08:16:22 -0700, Peter T. Daniels wrote:

> Whether it's "knee-hill-ist" or "nigh-hill-ist," you stress it on the
> second syllable?????

No, the first.

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

For me too.

I rarely say the word, but when I do the first "i" is the same as the
second "i": /I/, as in "hill" and "it".

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

[Derek Turner]

On Mon, 16 Jun 2014 08:16:35 -0700, Peter T. Daniels wrote:

> How does "nihil" occur in English?

Don't ash me, ask Chambers. They have it listed and defined as 'nil', with
nihilism as a derivative and Latin as the origin.

[Derek Turner]

On Mon, 16 Jun 2014 17:00:18 +0100, Peter Duncanson [BrE] wrote:

> I rarely say the word, but when I do the first "i" is the same as the
> second "i": /I/, as in "hill" and "it".

For me, too, but according to both of my dictionaries I am wrong (see
upthread). cf anihilate, I suppose.

[John Dawkins]

In article <41e8e914-64e0-4c5c...@googlegroups.com>,

A trio of nihilist musicians plays a role in the film.
--
J.

[Steve Hayes]

On Mon, 16 Jun 2014 17:29:51 +0800, Iskandar Baharuddin
<bren...@iinet.net.au> wrote:

>On 16/06/14 5:23 PM, dbrich...@lbl.gov wrote:
>> I hope you are all well & in good spirits.
>>
>> So, how do *you* pronounce "nihilist"?
>>
>> Thank you in advance for anything you may choose to share.
>>
>> (As an aside, have you seen the fine arts film "The Big Lebowski"? If so, what did you think of it?)
>>
>Sorry for not using ASCI IPA:
>
>knee-hill-ist.

Ditto.

--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

[Guy Barry]

Berkeley Brett wrote in message
news:9d575c65-82e6-4133...@googlegroups.com...

>
>I hope you are all well & in good spirits.
>
>So, how do *you* pronounce "nihilist"?

Long "i" in the first syllable, silent "h", and (unusually for BrE) with the
second "i" pronounced as schwa. Cf. "annihilate", about which there seems
to be far more consensus, and also "vehicle".

--
Guy Barry

[snide...@gmail.com]

On Monday, June 16, 2014 9:56:43 AM UTC-7, John Dawkins wrote:
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

> > On Monday, June 16, 2014 5:23:10 AM UTC-4, dbrich...@lbl.gov wrote:

> >
> > > So, how do *you* pronounce "nihilist"?
> >
> > NIGH-uh-list. How else? It ain't Latin.
> >
> > > (As an aside, have you seen the fine arts film "The Big Lebowski"? If so,
> > > what did you think of it?)
> >
> > Relevance?
>
> A trio of nihilist musicians plays a role in the film.

Would Neil pronounce it differently than Niles would?

/dps

[snide...@gmail.com]

Or is there nothing to that rumor?

/dps

[Mike L]

I use neither the "night" nor the "neat" vowel, but the "nit" one. In
Roman Latin, it's the squashed form "nil" that gets the "neat" vowel.

--
Mike.

[Jenn]

I pronounce it nigh-ah-list.

--
Jenn

[James Silverton]

Funny, I'd reverse the choice of vowels, I think: [nil] and [nIhIl]

--
Jim Silverton (Potomac, MD)

Extraneous "not." in Reply To.

[John Varela]

On Mon, 16 Jun 2014 09:23:10 UTC, dbrich...@lbl.gov wrote:

> I hope you are all well & in good spirits.
>
> So, how do *you* pronounce "nihilist"?

KNEE-ill-ist.

> Thank you in advance for anything you may choose to share.

You asked, you got it:

When our eldest son was a senior in high school, he and a couple of
friends wanted to form a club so they could get their photo in the
yearbook. Since there was already a profusion of clubs they were at
a loss for a topic for their new club. I suggested they form a
nihilist club, which they did. They were able to find a faculty
sponsor and they got their page in the yearbook. The photo showed
four empty chairs, including the one for the sponsor.

--
John "you're welcome" Varela

[R H Draney]

Derek Turner filted:

In candystriping class, I was taught it in the expansion of the hospital term
NPO ("nothing by mouth"), but the Acronym Finder shows that word only as
"Nil"/"Non"/"Nulla"....r


--
Me? Sarcastic?
Yeah, right.

[R H Draney]

Lewis filted:
>
>In message <51W5y0sPNk52-pn2-S3nrvVC8ccTd@localhost>

> John Varela <newl...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>> When our eldest son was a senior in high school, he and a couple of
>> friends wanted to form a club so they could get their photo in the
>> yearbook. Since there was already a profusion of clubs they were at
>> a loss for a topic for their new club. I suggested they form a
>> nihilist club, which they did. They were able to find a faculty
>> sponsor and they got their page in the yearbook. The photo showed
>> four empty chairs, including the one for the sponsor.
>

>That's excellent.

"The first rule of Nihilist Club is: there is no first rule of Nihilist
Club"....r

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

I have seen (in the UK) on a board on the wall behind a hospital
patient's bed the words "Nil By Mouth".

Various medical guidance documents on the websites of UK hospitals seem
to use the abbreviation "NBM".

[Skitt]

On 6/16/2014 10:06 AM, Steve Hayes wrote:
> On Mon, 16 Jun 2014 17:29:51 +0800, Iskandar Baharuddin
> <bren...@iinet.net.au> wrote:
>
>> On 16/06/14 5:23 PM, dbrich...@lbl.gov wrote:
>>> I hope you are all well & in good spirits.
>>>
>>> So, how do *you* pronounce "nihilist"?
>>>
>>> Thank you in advance for anything you may choose to share.
>>>
>>> (As an aside, have you seen the fine arts film "The Big Lebowski"? If so, what did you think of it?)
>>>
>> Sorry for not using ASCI IPA:
>>
>> knee-hill-ist.
>
> Ditto.
>

Well, I have issue with the "knee" part. I say it as "ni", just like
The Knights Who Say "Ni".

--
Skitt (SF Bay Area)
http://home.comcast.net/~skitt99/main.html

[Robert Bannister]

On 16/06/2014 11:01 pm, Lewis wrote:
> In message <c07ula...@mid.individual.net>

> Derek Turner <frd...@cesmail.net> wrote:
>> On Mon, 16 Jun 2014 02:23:10 -0700, dbrichardson wrote:
>

>>> So, how do *you* pronounce "nihilist"?
>

>> (BrE) knee-hill-ist. Because I sing a lot of Church Latin it would not
>> occur to me to pronounce it any other way.
>
>> I have heard others use nigh-hill-ist, and Chambers 20th Century gives
>> this as the only pronunciation, as does the Shorter Oxford, so I guess my
>> instincts fail me here and this latter is "correct". I should remember
>> change may ways.
>

> That h is nearly subsumed for me, it is very close to nigh-ill-ist.
>
I think that happens a lot in "annihilate", but not in "knee-hillist".

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

[Steve Hayes]

On Mon, 16 Jun 2014 18:24:03 +0100, "Guy Barry" <guy....@blueyonder.co.uk>
wrote:

In South Africa native Afrikaans speakers emphasise the h in vehicle, and
insert one into words like "creation".

[Robert Bannister]

Further going to show that when faced with vowel+h, we don't know what
to make of it. I'm sticking with "knee-hill" despite "uh-nigh-a-late"
and "veer-cul".

[Jenn]

I'd still say nigh-ah-list because it is similar to annihilate.

--
Jenn

[Peter T. Daniels]

"Nil" is fine in English. But "nihil"?

[Jeffrey Turner]

On 6/16/2014 5:23 AM, dbrich...@lbl.gov wrote:
> I hope you are all well & in good spirits.
>

> So, how do *you* pronounce "nihilist"?
>

> Thank you in advance for anything you may choose to share.
>
> (As an aside, have you seen the fine arts film "The Big Lebowski"? If so, what did you think of it?)

I pronounce it "ni-hi-list" with short i's all around. But it
doesn't come up much in conversation, and I wouldn't know if
others do likewise.

--Jeff AmE

[Peter Moylan]

On 16/06/14 19:23, dbrich...@lbl.gov wrote:

> I hope you are all well & in good spirits.

I've sworn off spirits for at least a while.

> So, how do *you* pronounce "nihilist"?

['ni @ lIst].

I was surprised at the number of respondents who aspirate the middle vowel.

--
Peter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. http://www.pmoylan.org
For an e-mail address, see my web page.

[Steve Hayes]

On Tue, 17 Jun 2014 13:59:44 +1000, Peter Moylan <pe...@pmoylan.org.invalid>
wrote:

>On 16/06/14 19:23, dbrich...@lbl.gov wrote:
>
>> I hope you are all well & in good spirits.
>
>I've sworn off spirits for at least a while.
>
>> So, how do *you* pronounce "nihilist"?
>
>['ni @ lIst].
>
>I was surprised at the number of respondents who aspirate the middle vowel.

In my case it's a very weak aspiration, not much different from "Neil list"

[R H Draney]

Jerry Friedman filted:

>
>On 6/16/14 3:23 AM, dbrich...@lbl.gov wrote:
>

>> (As an aside, have you seen the fine arts film
>

>Is that what it was?

>
>> "The Big Lebowski"? If so, what did you think of it?)
>

>Silly, but had its fun moments. Jeff Bridges was great.

And that rug really tied the room together....r

[R H Draney]

Robert Bannister filted:

The word is pronounced "NEE-uh-list" in the song "88 Lines About 44 Women" by
The Nails...as we have often established, hearing an unusual word pronounced in
a song lyric tends to override any other pronunciation one might hear
elsewhere....r

[Mark Brader]

David Richardson:

> So, how do *you* pronounce "nihilist"?

NIGH-hill-isst. (The H is very faint.)
--
Mark Brader | The chief use to which we put our love of the truth is
Toronto | in persuading ourselves that what we love is true.
m...@vex.net | -- Pierre Nicole, c.1675

[annily]

On 16.06.14 22:11, Derek Turner wrote:
> On Mon, 16 Jun 2014 14:29:45 +0200, James Hogg wrote:
>
>> Derek Turner wrote:
>>> On Mon, 16 Jun 2014 04:24:30 -0700, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>>
>>>> It ain't Latin.
>>>
>>> It ain't?
>>
>> No, it would have been "nihilista" if the word had existed in Latin.
>
> Fair enough but in Chambers it is listed as a derivative of the main entry
> 'nihil' which (as Chambers says) is Latin. But even that they pronounce
> nigh-hill. Nevertheless in Church Latin we sing knee-hil or knee-heel,
> which turned out to be a 'false friend' to me.
>

I've always pronounced "nihil" and its derivatives the way you do.
Macquarie gives both pronunciations and both are common in my experience.

--
Lifelong resident of Adelaide, South Australia
"Talking to yourself is only a problem if you get a response you don't
understand".

[annily]

On 17.06.14 13:29, Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 16/06/14 19:23, dbrich...@lbl.gov wrote:
>
>> I hope you are all well & in good spirits.
>
> I've sworn off spirits for at least a while.
>
>> So, how do *you* pronounce "nihilist"?
>
> ['ni @ lIst].
>
> I was surprised at the number of respondents who aspirate the middle vowel.
>

I may have given that impression when I agreed with Derek's
pronunciation, but I was concentrating only on the first syllable. My
pronunciation is the same as yours.

[Adam Funk]

On 2014-06-16, dbrich...@lbl.gov wrote:

> (As an aside, have you seen the fine arts film "The Big Lebowski"? If so, what did you think of it?)

One of my favorites.


--
You're the last hope for vaudeville.
--- Groucho Marx to Alice Cooper

[Jerry Friedman]

"Veer-cul" took me a second. The way I say "vehicle" probably would
sound like your "veer-cul", though.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Wayne Brown]

I say it the same way, for the same reason.

--
F. Wayne Brown <fwb...@bellsouth.net>

Þæs ofereode, ðisses swa mæg. ("That passed away, this also can.")
from "Deor," in the Exeter Book (folios 100r-100v)

[John Varela]

On Mon, 16 Jun 2014 22:17:53 UTC, R H Draney <dado...@spamcop.net>
wrote:

Neither is there a Committee.

--
John Varela

[Robert Bannister]

You are correct. It's just that I didn't know how to spell "Ni".

[Robert Bannister]

Which is quite reasonable and quite possibly correct, but English is not
reasonable and two totally different pronunciations are just as likely.

[Robert Bannister]

Something like [vi@k@l]

[R H Draney]

John Varela filted:

And the *reason* there is no Committee is that the Committee have so decreed
it....r

[Mack A. Damia]

On 17 Jun 2014 21:30:25 -0700, R H Draney <dado...@spamcop.net>

To which we have decried it.

--

[Adam Funk]

Sh! We are now the knights who say... never mind, I can't remember.


--
You're 100 percent correct --- it's been scientifically proven that
microwaving changes the molecular structure of food. THIS IS CALLED
COOKING, YOU NITWIT. --- Cecil Adams

[Jenn]

Of course..

--
Jenn