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As Randall Munroe pointed out in https://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey-results/ https://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey-results/, almost nobody kn
by jcranmer 11mo ago
As Randall Munroe pointed out in https://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey-results/ https://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey-results/, almost nobody knows how to spell "fuchsia" correctly. I only remember it by the mnemonic of it's fuck, but with an s.
- crazygringo 11mo agoI vote to just change the spelling to what almost everyone already thinks it is anyways. It'll still be just as weird. But "chs" is just nonsensical. The idea that it would sound like "sh" is baffling. I mean, I know this is English spelling which is not known for its regularity, but this is just too much.
- pwdisswordfishy 11mo agoIt comes from the surname of a German botanist. Which just happens to mean "fox". Never had problems with it. It would probably help if you pronounced it right, with a /ks/.
- School-Cotton 11mo agoThe beginning of the English word "fuchsia" is not pronounced like the German word Fuchs, so indeed the spelling does not match the pronunciation. This is independent of the fact that it comes from that word. Plenty of things in English (and, in fact, loanwords in every language) sound different from the words they're derived from; that doesn't mean trying to imitate the source language is the "right" pronunciation. If you pronounce fuchsia like "fuksia" nobody will understand you.
- darkwater 11mo ago> If you pronounce fuchsia like "fuksia" nobody will understand you. TIL and yet another case of "English is fucking weird".
- lloeki 11mo ago> But "chs" is just nonsensical. The idea that it would sound like "sh" is baffling In the word "french" C H is pronounced sh and nobody bats an eye, I don't think it's that outlandish that someone once read it as fuch-sia, incorrectly splitting it compared to the original. In the language French, fuchsia is unequivocally read something more like few-shia, and I'd bet that even though it comes from German Fuchs-ia (fooks-ia) English has picked it up from the French side. If you find such a loanword weird, don't you dare try reading Japanese. https://aethermug.com/posts/the-beautiful-dissociation-of-the-japanese-language https://aethermug.com/posts/the-beautiful-dissociation-of-th...
- soiltype 11mo ago> In the word "french" C H is pronounced sh No, it's not. Unless you think the "n" in french is pronounced "nt".
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- lloeki 11mo agoFine, and legit. I get what I deserve for not looking it up! Scaramouch and crochet though.
- crazygringo 11mo agoSure, and cache and cloche. But the question here is chs, not ch. Which though rare, is widely understood to be a kind of guttural sound or "k" sound followed by an s. In -uchs or -ichs coming from German. Not the "sh" sound in fuchsia.
- majoe 11mo agoDamn, I always thought Fuchsia is just a colour, but today I learned - Fuchsia is a flower - which is named after a German botanist (Leonhart Fuchs) - Fuchsia in English is pronounced completely different than in German. - Google is surprisingly bad at naming their products
- Angostura 11mo agoIt’s helps if you know that the flower the fuchsia, was discovered by Dr Fuchs
- eesmith 11mo agoNamed after, apparently. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuchsia#Taxonomy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuchsia#Taxonomy > The first to be scientifically described, Fuchsia triphylla, was discovered on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic) about 1696–1697 by the French Minim friar and botanist, Charles Plumier, during his third expedition to the Greater Antilles. He named the new genus after German botanist Leonhart Fuchs See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuchsia_triphylla https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuchsia_triphylla .