Magus

[PVER•PVERVM•AMAT]

Why is 'magus' generally pronounced /'meɪ.gəs/ , and not /'mæg.əs/ as Latin /'ma.gʊs/ and Ancient Greek /má.gos/ would suggest? Even stranger, 'magi' is almost always /'mæd͡ʒ.aɪ/, faithful to Latin /'ma.giː/ which makes /'meɪ.gəs/ seem especially strange.

[CaesarVincens]

I have /mægəs/ and /mæʤaɪ/. Latin long <a> is often pronounced /eɪ/ so it may be a bleed over for the properly short <a> /æ/.

Some words have the alternate pronunciations by region I think such as "macron" which I have /æ/ and others have /eɪ/.

[Zaarin]

I have <æ> for both, though I have to say Dragon Age really caught me offguard with /'meɪʤaɪ/. I suppose it was trying to go by analogy with mage /meɪʤ/.

[TaylorS]

I have the flag-plague merger, so that is the reason for me.

[CatDoom]

I've heard /'meɪ.gəs/ a lot, but from a young age I've pronounced it /'mæg.əs/, having encountered the word as the name of a character in the game Chrono Trigger.

On the other hand, I think the only pronunciation of "macron" I've ever heard is something like /'mækrɑn/.

Edit: Funny, I hadn't heard of the flag-plague merger, but I definitely pronounce the latter closer to /plɛg/ than to /pleɪg/.

[linguoboy]

Not only have I heard ['meɪgəs] quite often, I've even heard ['meɪʤəs] (a clear case of analogical leveling).

I don't recall ever using magus spontaneously before the eponymous White Wolf publication. We just said "one of the magi" (pronounced with [æ]).

[Hydroeccentricity]

While we're on the subject, can anyone explain to me why it's pronounced "marjarine?"

[zompist]

Apparently no one knows. From the OED, looks like it was pronounced with [g] in the 19th century, but "oleomargarine" often with a [ʤ]... for unknown reasons, but my guess it that it's a spelling pronunciation based on a misspelling.

[Lambuzhao]

Why is 'magus' generally pronounced /'meɪ.gəs/ , and not /'mæg.əs/ as Latin /'ma.gʊs/ and Ancient Greek /má.gos/ would suggest? Even stranger, 'magi' is almost always /'mæd͡ʒ.aɪ/, faithful to Latin /'ma.giː/ which makes /'meɪ.gəs/ seem especially strange.

From christianish interlocutors, I have heard 'magus' pronounced /'meɪ.gəs/ and /'mæg.əs/ when referring to Simon the Sorcerer, played by Jack Palance in the 1954 movie The Silver Chalice.

I am also used to hearing both /'mæd͡ʒ.aɪ/ and /'meɪ.d͡ʒ.aɪ/ for 'magi'.

But, from my days with AD&D, I have known only one pronunciation for 'mage' : /meɪd͡ʒ/.

For me, /mæd͡ʒ/ could only be 'Madge' a nickname for Margaret, or sometime paparazzi-moniker for Madonna.

[Lambuzhao]

Apparently no one knows. From the OED, looks like it was pronounced with [g] in the 19th century, but "oleomargarine" often with a [ʤ]... for unknown reasons, but my guess it that it's a spelling pronunciation based on a misspelling.

I googled, and found this:
N.E.D. (1905 ) gives as the pronunciation only (mā·ɹgărīn), with /-g-/ ; this pronunciation, which became rare in the second half of the 20th cent., probably underlies the nickname Maggie Ann (see maggie n. 4). N.E.D. (1902 ), however, s.v. Oleomargarine, notes that the latter is ‘Often mispronounced (-mā·ɹdʒərīn), as if spelt -margerine’ (i.e. with /-dʒ-/ ). The latter pronunciation is recorded in 1913 (with subordinate status) by H. Michaelis & D. Jones Phonetic Dict. Eng. Lang.; the shortened form marge, in which -ge also implies pronunciation with /-dʒ-/ , is attested within ten years of this (see 1922 at marge n.2). The shift of stress, outside North American English, from the first to the final syllable is also first evidenced in the 1913 source.

1913 sounds like maybe the switch in pronunciation might've had to do with WWI, rationing, or maybe margarine's use with doughboys overseas.

I found this, and sort of got more than I bargained for:

http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/t ... margarine/

and this, too:
http://www.mentalfloss.com/article/2563 ... -margarine


I'm not a betting man, but I would bet that this newer pronunciation was a way for the newer Margarine Industry to remarket itself after getting beaten up by the Dairy Butter Industry in both the U.S. and GB.
It is not impossible that the newer (mis)pronunciation might have been slightly influenced by the surname of margarine's creator, one Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès. But I think this is a pretty long stretch; where and when needs attestation.

[clawgrip]

Why is 'magus' generally pronounced /'meɪ.gəs/ , and not /'mæg.əs/ as Latin /'ma.gʊs/ and Ancient Greek /má.gos/ would suggest? Even stranger, 'magi' is almost always /'mæd͡ʒ.aɪ/, faithful to Latin /'ma.giː/ which makes /'meɪ.gəs/ seem especially strange.

For what its worth, the pronunciation /'meɪ.gəs/ follows the basic rules of English spelling, though magi should also be /'meɪd͡ʒ.aɪ/ according to those rules. But since CaCuC is rare in native English words (does it even exist at all?) the examples mostly come from foreign loans where they /æ/ can get preserved (cf. lapus, gamut, fabulous, etc.).

Same thing happens with datum (/'dæt.əm/ or /'deɪ.təm/?).

[Soap]

"fathom" fits the CaCuC pattern if you treat the -u- as a schwa. There are a few other words like "gallon" that have a similar pattern. Bacon is technically a loan, but I think few people think of it as one. There thus seem to be examples of both long and short A in words of this pattern. That is, of course, if you call the -u- of magus a schwa.

[clawgrip]

I'm talking specifically about spelling rules here. Gallon doesn't fit the pattern because it's got a double <l>, which would force <a> to be pronounced /æ/. The other words have a single consonant between the vowels, that force the <a> to be pronounced /eɪ/ according to English spelling rules, but often foreign pronunciation overrides native spelling rules in English. You can see resistance to Anglification in words like ballet, lyra, Waikiki, chemical, etc. Nevertheless, native spelling rules can sometimes beat out the original pronunciation. You can see this Anglification happening with e.g. Iraq becoming /aɪ'ræk/, data becoming /'deɪ.ta/, Thebes becoming /θiːbz/, unify becoming /'ju.nɪ.faɪ/, Paris becoming /'pæ.rɪs/ etc.

[zompist]

clawgrip, I think you're mixing etymology and orthography a bit. "English spelling rules" aren't Anglo-Saxon; they're late medieval. For purposes of spelling, the huge mass of Norman French borrowings are native.

And to a large extent, so are borrowings from Latin and Greek. A word like "chemical" certainly isn't given its Greek pronunciation. Why we do preserve short vowels in many Greco-Latin words I'm not sure; possibly the pattern long-short-short itself sounds too foreign.

[clawgrip]

The reason I was focusing on spelling rules is because they can and do influence the way that words are pronounced. As I mentioned, I'm fairly certain spelling rules are responsible for the shift from /'dæ.təm/ to /'deɪ.təm/; had it been spelled <dattum> I have my doubts the pronunciation would have shifted (cf. septum, dictum, which have not shifted to /iː/, /aɪ/ respectively and which both have spellings that typically preserve "short" vowels). Since datum and magus have similar spellings, it seems relevant.

[KathTheDragon]

FWIW, I pronounce <datum> as /dɑ.təm/

[clawgrip]

How about data?

Of course the shift is not totally complete, but it's my guess that the vast majority of people are on the /ei/ side.

[KathTheDragon]

<data> /deɪ.tə/

Similar vowel alternation in <magus~magi>, probably based on <datum~data> since <magi> is /meɪ.ʤʌɪ/, and <magus> wasn't even a word for me until this thread.

[Matrix]

I have [æg] in "magus", [æd͡ʒ] in "magi", and [ɛɪd͡ʒ] in "mage".
I have [ɛɪ] in both "data" and "datum".

[Nate]

This is why I much prefer just using <mage>. Means the same thing, but has a consistent and more logical pronunciation, /meIdZ/ (X-SAMPA since I'm on a tablet.) And I've always found it annoying referring to female magical people as a masculine noun, even if the gender exists only in Latin.

[Dewrad]

This is why I much prefer just using <mage>. Means the same thing,.

No, it really doesn't. The gospels don't portray three wizards visiting Jesus in his manger, nor did sorcerers preside over the official religion of pre-Islamic Persia.

[KathTheDragon]

The gospels don't portray three wizards visiting Jesus in his manger

Nor did it say three.

[PVER•PVERVM•AMAT]

Please don't derail the topic with talk of wizards and the number of magi. In any case, it's definitely a spelling pronunciation. Such things are also seen in the British pronunciations of 'status' and 'data' (though for 'data', the British pronunciation is rapidly being adopted in America). Are there any other words with short A in Latin that became long A in at least one variety of English?

(On the topic of spelling pronunciation, is American yodful 'figure' a spelling pronunciation? Some sources say it is without producing evidence, but the U is long in Latin 'figura', and it was borrowed from Old French. where it would almost definitely have /y/, which would become /juː/ in Modern English.)

[linguoboy]

Please don't derail the topic with talk of wizards and the number of magi. In any case, it's definitely a spelling pronunciation. Such things are also seen in the British pronunciations of 'status' and 'data' (though for 'data', the British pronunciation is rapidly being adopted in America). Are there any other words with short A in Latin that became long A in at least one variety of English?

Basilicum? (Mediated through French, of course.)

[aquatius]

I've only ever heard /'meɪ.d͡ʒ.aɪ/ in the UK. For magus I'd also use /eɪ/.