Compendium of Pesticide Common NamesBritish pronunciation of common names of pesticidesCommon names of pesticides include syllables that are familiar to chemists, but members of the general public often have no idea how to pronounce them. Only a few pesticide names find their way into general-purpose printed or online dictionaries that indicate pronunciation. The pronunciation of common names obviously varies widely in the many countries in which they are used, and so it is not feasible to include pronunciations in ISO 1750 Pesticides and other agrochemicals – Common names. At one time, the British Standards Institution (BSI) maintained BS 1831 Common names for pesticides in parallel with ISO 1750, and included an indication of the British pronunciation of each name. The members of a BSI sub-committee devised a British pronunciation for each common name when it was approved. The last specification of the pronunciation system was published in BSI 1831 : Part 1 : 1985 Appendix C, on which the following is based. Starting in November 2007, these BSI pronunciations are being added to data sheets. StressStressed syllables are marked with HTML <em> tags, which in most Web browsers produce italic type. ConsonantsMost consonants are given their usual pronunciations, subject to the following:
To ensure clarity, the pronunciation of certain other consonants is defined as follows:
VowelsVowel sounds are represented and pronounced as follows:
ExamplesThe following examples show the pronunciation of certain syllables and words:
Numerals and initialsSome old common names consist of numerals followed by initials, or of initials only, e.g. 2,4-DES and TEPP. In such cases, each numeral and initial should be pronounced separately, i.e. two-four-D-E-S (not twenty-four des) and T-E-P-P (not tep). Why not use IPA?The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is designed for representing pronunciation, but with versions of Microsoft Windows before Vista the necessary characters are not included in the core fonts and Internet Explorer 7 displays them poorly. The accented characters used in the Compendium are present in Windows XP and Mac OS X 10.4 and later versions, and so most people will be able to see them. IPA equivalents may be added when most people are able to see them properly in the following table.
Windows Vista with Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 2 or Opera 9 can display the IPA characters properly.
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