What meaning is Pokie?

FryLock

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Atrax back in the day (remebering i sold up bar a few mid 90's) no one i knew close ever change the c to k im guessing ppl have a bug stuck somewere about the classic latin sounds of the words now ;P
 

Henry Kane

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FryLock said:
Atrax back in the day (remebering i sold up bar a few mid 90's) no one i knew close ever change the c to k im guessing ppl have a bug stuck somewere about the classic latin sounds of the words now ;P
I don't suppose that would be out of character for the individual in question.
Thanks for letting me know however. That certainly simplifies things.

On that note, I will revise my post:

The correct pronounciation simply is Poe-sill-oh-theria, from here to abroad. :p

Take care.

Atrax
 

Maikardaaion

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Aren't you a bit too proud of Yourselves?? :p I'm 100% european and I pronounce it with 'sill' in the middle!! :D
 

Henry Kane

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Maikardaaion said:
Aren't you a bit too proud of Yourselves?? :p I'm 100% european and I pronounce it with 'sill' in the middle!! :D
I'm not incredibly proud after discovering the information I reveived was questionable. So far, that's 2 Europeans to 1. I suppose I've gathered the broken pieces of my dignity since my last post. :}

Funny thing though, I kind of liked the ring that Mr. Smith's pronounciation had but it would completely lose it's charm with the American accent.

Atrax
 

RazorRipley

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Mark said:
Can someone tell me the meaning?
the term 'pokie' means member of the poecilothera. Its a slang word that people got from the name POCOCKI, the big guy who is credited with discovering most of these different species. In fact, the smithi a very short while back used to be the 'pococki' species.
 

thetonestarr

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This thread is ancient and I'm sure this has been discussed again sometime in the past 17 years, but...

"Poecilotheria" comes from the Greek ποικίλος "poikilos" (pronounced "po-ee-key-lowss") and θηρίον "therion" ("tee-ree-on").

*these pronunciations are slightly off - there IS a bit of a "th" pronounciation in "therion" but the specific sound is absent in English, so it's easiest to go with the nearest sound - and it's basically 90% just a "t").

Anyways, all said and done, the genus is properly pronounced "po-ee-key-lo-tee-ree-uh". Because binomials are written in neo-Latin - sometimes are Latin-originating words, but usually are Latinized words from other languages, it's ~technically~ OK to pronounce entirely by Latin rules, but the most correct way to pronounce a binomial is all parts pronounced by their original language, EXCEPT the parts converted to Latin (in the case of Poecilotheria, that would only be the -ia ending).

source: professional linguist.
 

Edan bandoot

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This thread is ancient and I'm sure this has been discussed again sometime in the past 17 years, but...

"Poecilotheria" comes from the Greek ποικίλος "poikilos" (pronounced "po-ee-key-lowss") and θηρίον "therion" ("tee-ree-on").

*these pronunciations are slightly off - there IS a bit of a "th" pronounciation in "therion" but the specific sound is absent in English, so it's easiest to go with the nearest sound - and it's basically 90% just a "t").

Anyways, all said and done, the genus is properly pronounced "po-ee-key-lo-tee-ree-uh". Because binomials are written in neo-Latin - sometimes are Latin-originating words, but usually are Latinized words from other languages, it's ~technically~ OK to pronounce entirely by Latin rules, but the most correct way to pronounce a binomial is all parts pronounced by their original language, EXCEPT the parts converted to Latin (in the case of Poecilotheria, that would only be the -ia ending).

source: professional linguist.
i say pee so la theria : ) ) )

source- not a professional linguist.
 

thetonestarr

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i say pee so la theria : ) ) )

source- not a professional linguist.
And that's fine! how people pronounce things that aren't in their native language. I'm just saying, for the people who want to know the proper way, here it is.
 
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quirinus

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in latin you pronounce "c" with the sound "k", so that pronunciation would be "poekiloteria"
that's not 100% correct, if the c stands ahead of an i (and also some other letters), it is pronounced "ts" in german or "ch" or something like that in english.
just google "latin pronunciation of c"

The Europeans pronounce it with the "k" sound
also not true, see above.
 

mack1855

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i say pee so la theria : ) ) )
Same here,thanks…...and we all know what genus we are referring to .And I will not change my pronunciation anytime soon.
I generally butcher the Engish language .And don't even ask about my Spanish,:lol:.Latin?.Ya,ok.
 

Matt Man

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Nickname derived from a mispronunciation of the Genus. The proper pronunciation is pee suh luh theria. So if anything they should be called PeeCees, or PeeSus.
oe in latin is never pronounced like a O. The C is an S and not hard K. Hard Ks are typically Ch (as in Chianti)

Some say it was derived from Pocock, but I've never seen any verification. Here's your latin.
 

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thetonestarr

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Nickname derived from a mispronunciation of the Genus. The proper pronunciation is pee suh luh theria. So if anything they should be called PeeCees, or PeeSus.
oe in latin is never pronounced like a O. The C is an S and not hard K. Hard Ks are typically Ch (as in Chianti)

Some say it was derived from Pocock, but I've never seen any verification. Here's your latin.
Again, that's not exactly accurate. That document is shoehorning all binomial names into Latin pronunciation, but if they aren't of Latin origin (as Poecilotheria is not), the most correct pronunciation will not follow Latin rules.

Poecilotheria is of Greek origin, so pronouncing it by Greek rules is most correct.

Since scientific/binomial names are Latinized, pronouncing by Latin rules is *accepted*, even if not *correct*. But since this thread is discussing what is *correct*, it's important to distinguish the language from which it is derived and follow those rules.
 

AphonopelmaTX

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Again, that's not exactly accurate. That document is shoehorning all binomial names into Latin pronunciation, but if they aren't of Latin origin (as Poecilotheria is not), the most correct pronunciation will not follow Latin rules.

Poecilotheria is of Greek origin, so pronouncing it by Greek rules is most correct.

Since scientific/binomial names are Latinized, pronouncing by Latin rules is *accepted*, even if not *correct*. But since this thread is discussing what is *correct*, it's important to distinguish the language from which it is derived and follow those rules.
No one ever pronounces any word, including names, according to the pronunciation rules of the language it comes from. This is true in zoological nomenclature as well. The fact of the matter is the scientific names of organisms are a mix-match of different languages. When one considers that taxon names above the genus rank, such as Poecilotherinae (subfamily), may have a Greek root but is Latinized by the suffiix -inae, all of the rules of pronunciation according to the language of the root word go straight out of the window. Even if the genus name Poecilotheria is pronounced using Latin rules, the first syllable wouldn't be pronounced "peek" or "piece", it would be pronounced "poych" or "poich" (hard to type phonetically).

When these old scientific names are made up, they are spelled with a ligature. When Eugene Simon, a Frenchman, came up with the name Poecilotheria, he used the ligature œ; so the original spelling was Pœcilotheria. I don't know classic Greek or Latin, but I do know the ligature œ is supposed to be pronounced "ee" as in "see" in modern English.

When these discussions come up, no one considers that there really is no 'proper' way to pronounce the scientific names of organisms. For example, according one pronunciation guide (American Tarantula Society Forum) the first three letters of Poecilotheria is pronounced "pee", but another pronunciation guide (Spiders of North America: An Identification Manual) states the first syllable of the genus Poeciloneta as "poy". One is obviously using common pronunciation of the ligature œ and another is using Latin, but neither is apparently using Greek.

At the end of the day, it really doesn't matter how one pronounces scientific names, but I think we can all agree that the first syllable of Poecilotheria is definitely not "poke." :)
 

sasker

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Good to know how to pronounce it, but all of this still doesn't answer the question of this thread: what does it mean? ;)


"Poecilotheria" comes from the Greek ποικίλος "poikilos" (pronounced "po-ee-key-lowss") and θηρίον "therion" ("tee-ree-on").
Do I correctly draw the conclusion that Poecilotheria means 'diverse beast'? That's what Google Translate came up with.
 

thetonestarr

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No one ever pronounces any word, including names, according to the pronunciation rules of the language it comes from. This is true in zoological nomenclature as well. The fact of the matter is the scientific names of organisms are a mix-match of different languages. When one considers that taxon names above the genus rank, such as Poecilotherinae (subfamily), may have a Greek root but is Latinized by the suffiix -inae, all of the rules of pronunciation according to the language of the root word go straight out of the window. Even if the genus name Poecilotheria is pronounced using Latin rules, the first syllable wouldn't be pronounced "peek" or "piece", it would be pronounced "poych" or "poich" (hard to type phonetically).

When these old scientific names are made up, they are spelled with a ligature. When Eugene Simon, a Frenchman, came up with the name Poecilotheria, he used the ligature œ; so the original spelling was Pœcilotheria. I don't know classic Greek or Latin, but I do know the ligature œ is supposed to be pronounced "ee" as in "see" in modern English.

When these discussions come up, no one considers that there really is no 'proper' way to pronounce the scientific names of organisms. For example, according one pronunciation guide (American Tarantula Society Forum) the first three letters of Poecilotheria is pronounced "pee", but another pronunciation guide (Spiders of North America: An Identification Manual) states the first syllable of the genus Poeciloneta as "poy". One is obviously using common pronunciation of the ligature œ and another is using Latin, but neither is apparently using Greek.

At the end of the day, it really doesn't matter how one pronounces scientific names, but I think we can all agree that the first syllable of Poecilotheria is definitely not "poke." :)
Ultimately I would say you're right that it doesn't matter, but I disagree on whether there's a correct way or not.

But yes, in Greek, it's "po-eek" or "poyk", so "poke" certainly isn't right, but here's the fun thing. With abbreviations, it doesn't matter! My name is Anthony but nobody whines about where the h went to make Tony. My wife's name is Amanda but nobody says, "where'd the y come from?"

Abbreviations can cut things out all the time. All that matters, in the end, is that the origin of "Poecilotheria" contains "po" and "kee" sounds, so "pokie" is entirely valid in my book.

Good to know how to pronounce it, but all of this still doesn't answer the question of this thread: what does it mean? ;)


Do I correctly draw the conclusion that Poecilotheria means 'diverse beast'? That's what Google Translate came up with.
IIRC "poikilos" here is used to mean "spotted", in reference to the P.regalis banding.
 

thetonestarr

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I always find 'Bill' short for William a bit odd.
Right? Or Dick from Richard.

Apparently in medieval England, it was common to use "rhyming" nicknames. IE, the nickname for Richard was Rick, so they rhymed to Dick and ran with it. Nickname for William was Will, so they rhymed to Bill and said ok cool.
 
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