Mojo - The Music Magazine

Episode 2: Pronunciation death match!

Wednesday, January 7th, Melbourne
2:30 AM

What I like about blogs is how they provide one with a virtually uncensored platform for expounding one's innermost excruciating thoughts and feelings about all manner of peccadilloes, pet peeves and fetishes.

Now these Melbourne shows have been brilliant: the band is in top form blah-blah-blah, and the crowds were great and warm. It's all good. Did you expect me to report any differently? But behind the scenes, in our backstage inner sanctum, controversy has spread its dread hand over the ranks.

Almost everyone in the Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds claims to suffer from tinnitus or "ringing in the ears". This topic came up in casual group conversation in the dressing room just prior to the show. And everyone agreed on how to pronounce that word: TINN-i-tus. Everyone, that is, except me. My esteemed Australian colleagues rather forcefully contend that the "mispronunciation" ti-NYE-tus is an erroneous American bastardization (or words to that effect).

Culture clashes are to be expected in a band of mixed nationalities. However, I feel compelled to point out that while both pronunciations are cited in some American dictionaries, in fact, TINN-i-tus is more widely regarded as the "correct" pronunciation in my native land.

On the other hand, according to the OED (1989 edition) the only correct pronunciation of "tinnitus" (from the Latin tinnitus) is ti-NYE-tus. Furthermore, Charles Harrington Elster in his Big Book Of Beastly Mispronunciations indicates that not only does this pronunciation bear historical credentials, it also is the only one that conforms to the standard rules for conversion of anglicizing Latin words.

I will continue to wince and shudder and my throat will go dry any time I cave in to peer pressure and must utter TINN-i-tus in public. But in private, my coveted secret ti-NYE-tus will still be the nocturnal whisper that alone in bed in the middle of the sleepless night, greets the inevitable ringing in my ears.

Read chapter 3. Eagles, llama (llamas?), Aussie spookiness reign.