In this case, the confusion comes from iota.
. I know I swore off But damn the flesh is weak, but:
Thank you Dear God, at last an iota of proof.
...but you're actually saying that I, who have been taught the Greek alphabet all my life by fluent Greek speakers, am totally wrong and my opinion is totally insupportable.
As a funny guy once said “This is the kind of pedantic demagoguery, up with which I will not put.” I don't care if you were taught by Aristotle and can say the Greek Alphabet backwards with a tennis ball in your mouth and your head in bucket of beer. By now we know you to be a Greek Scholar. Personally, being the world’s foremost authority, I can respect that. But you are talking about the Greek
letter Pi and everyone else in this thread is talking about the English Noun Pi.
It is your insistence that the English noun PI is pronounced pee that is totally insupportable. Pi the letter became PI the noun over time. Originally it was used by the Greeks as an initial, Pi being the first letter of perimetros (perimeter) in English. Over Time what used to be an abbreviation became a term of “art”. As an initial, it referred to the perimeter of anything from your back yard, to a rectangle or a circle. Over time it developed a specific identity and separate definition as a noun which refers just to the constant relationship of the circumference of a circle to it’s radius. That word transported itself out of the Greek and into the whole wide world. I don’t know how or if it’s pronounced in Russian or Chinese. Or Greek. I do know it is correctly pronounced PIE in English. You keep saying dictionaries are NOT authority. It’s all we have for words. We don’t have word court. We have dictionaries. Many believe that the great entomological OXFORD English dictionary, compiled in the early part of the past century by the linguistic Dons of Oxford is the foremost authority but not everyone. Dictionaries change, they grow, they are debated and they often cause conflict as language grows and evolves. Not all dictionaries agree on everything. Not everyone agrees which dictionary is better. BUT NOT WITH PI. From OED to Meriam Webster, to the American Heritage, they all agree. It’s pie. All your pride of race, love of learning and yearning for ancient purity will not change that.
Anyway sorry. Can’t help myself. Go ahead. Have the last word now. I mean it this time. Really. Maybe.
Cheers, BostonTim
