Here! Here!  In all the time I discussed shells with Tucker, and all the times I
butchered my latin pronunciations, he never corrected or failed to respond to my
enthusiasm in other than a serious, noncritical manner.  I miss that man.
 
Marlo
 
JOBO27 wrote:
 
> Dear Jenny,
>         You stated that when speaking to a professional malacologist you needed to
> sound like you knew what you were talking about and that you wanted your
> state-
> ments taken seriously.  Also something about using good scientific
> pronunciation
> keeping you from making an impression as someone who either doesn't care, or
> doesn't any better.
>         If ever there was a butcher of Latin, it's me.  Use to worry about it.  At a
> shell
> show was talking with Tucker Abbott and I apologized about my horrible Latin
> pronunciation of a genus we were talking about.  He looked at me and told me
> not to worry about it, that most collectors wouldn't pay much attention to the
> way I
> pronounced it.  He then said he knew what I was talking about even if I didn't
> pronounce it like he did.
>         Tucker knew I cared and was serious about what we were talking about.  It
> should be noted that I do make an effort to pronounce Latin names correctly.
> To
> bring this probably boring story to a conclusion, from that day on I figured
> that
> if the way I pronounced some Latin shell names was good enough for Tucker, it
> was good enough for everybody else.
>
> Bob G
> PC Florida