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