Sunday, November 30, 2008

A pronunciation question

How do you say my name?

Mike over at 10000 Birds, posted a poll recently regarding the pronunciation of Pauraque - that master of nightjar disguise, which recently has been the subject of several blog posts from those that were lucky enough to go to the Rio Grande Birding Festival this year.
And it got me thinking about another pronunciation that I have now heard a few different ways and thought I'd ask readers for their feedback on how they pronounce pileated. You know, that woodpecker that is emblazoned all over this blog. (Depending upon feedback I may make this a long-running poll in the sidebar, but I'm just going to start with this for now.)

The two most common that I hear are:
1- with the stress on the first syllable and a long I (like pie) with the l joining a hard E and hard A: PIE-lee-ate-ed
2- with the l joining a short i at the beginning, a stronger stress on the second syllable, then the same long A: pill-EE-ate-ed
(I apologize to all those out there that are groaning from my poor attempt at providing pronounciation instruction)

Certainly not the variety of pronounciations as some other birds out ther, but I'm curious as to how you say "Pileated"?