Pronouncing Aa - Orchid Board

Andrew · #1 02-23-2011, 10:42 PM

I'm asking this out of simple curiosity rather than a desperate need to know but does anyone know how the genus Aa should be pronounced?

Ay-Ah? A-Ah? Ahh?

Assuming you buy the etymology, IOSPE states that it's named after Peter Van der Aa, which would be helpful information if I spoke dutch.

RobS · #2 02-24-2011, 12:56 AM

That would be like the last a in Cattleya or the last one in australia.

Text To Speech, TTS: English, Spanish, French, Russian, Italian, German, Portuguese

Tindomul · #3 02-24-2011, 11:02 AM

Thats cool to know. I also read that Heinrich Gustav Reichenbach created the genus Aa so that his name would always appear first in a list of flowering plant genera names or orchid genera names. So it kinda throws into question whether or not it was named after someone. Perhaps he named it after that person just so that he could create the genus Aa.
Because in botany when you write a genus you also have to write next to it the name of the person who created that genus.
Aa (Reichb) stands for Reichenbach

Angurek · #4 02-24-2011, 11:47 AM

I always pronounce it "Ahhh." It's quite relaxing to do so.

I've always found Aa to be one of the strangest genus names in the orchid world.

Andrew · #5 02-25-2011, 04:44 AM

Thanks for the help. Tindomul, I stuggle to believe that Reichenbach truly wanted to honour the publisher of a book that was published 150 years prior to the date the genus was described and, from what I understand, contained minimal orchid content by naming an orchid after him. It is conceiveable that he did a lot of work finding a remotely relevant person named Aa to justify choosing the name. Botanical descriptions include the etymology of the name. 'Named in honour of Peter van der Aa' gives Reichenbach a bit more credibility than 'named to secure first place in an index'.

Erce · #6 02-25-2011, 12:01 PM

its a littel fun, in denmark were i live Aa is Å and a letter vi use a lot when spelling

lycaonpictus · #7 02-25-2011, 07:43 PM

Geologically speaking, aa is also a particular type of lava. In that case, it's pronounced "ah-ah"!

Paul · #8 02-26-2011, 10:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lycaonpictus

Geologically speaking, aa is also a particular type of lava. In that case, it's pronounced "ah-ah"!

That's what I assumed it was named after until reading the first comments. (If it had been named based on the lava, then the name would be Hawaiian in origin ... just a bit of trivia)

tropterrarium · #9 03-06-2011, 01:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew

Thanks for the help. Tindomul, I stuggle to believe that Reichenbach truly wanted to honour the publisher of a book that was published 150 years prior to the date the genus was described and, from what I understand, contained minimal orchid content by naming an orchid after him. It is conceiveable that he did a lot of work finding a remotely relevant person named Aa to justify choosing the name. Botanical descriptions include the etymology of the name. 'Named in honour of Peter van der Aa' gives Reichenbach a bit more credibility than 'named to secure first place in an index'.

Not sure about ICBN rules, but in ICZN random letter combinations are invalid! So Aa to secure first place in list would be invalid, but naming it after some obscure publisher is just fine. GENIUS! Who said nomenclature was no fun?