Dash asked a question that I think other people have been wondering also: how do you pronounce my blog-name?

Although it's somewhat embarrassing to admit this, I'm not sure. Camassia is a scientific name, a Latinization of camass (pronounced cam-us), itself an Anglicization of quamash, the Native American name for the plant pictured at left. It's not the sort of word you're likely to hear unless you're hanging with botanists. When I first read the name I thought of it as ca-mash-a, but my mother, Telford, and Peter all pronounce it ca-mass-ee-a, while Dash asked if it was pronounced that way or ca-ma-see-a.

Really, I don't care how people say it, since I adopted it for print purposes only. I liked the idea of a floral name, since I like gardening (though I haven't done much of it living in city apartments, alas), and I wanted something unique that sounds like it could be a woman's name. Actually, I'm not the only blogger with pronunciation issues. I've noticed that Telford pronounces Eve Tushnet's last name so the first syllable rhymes with lush, while I say it to rhyme with push, because I have a more prurient mind, I guess. And while we're at it, how do you pronounce Tom Kreitzberg's last name? How about all of Amitai Etzioni?

And then there's The New Republic's blog &c., which is, Ted Barlow helpfully informs us, "pronounced 'Prince'."