dilettante said:

Another reason why a foot doctor is a “podiatrist”!

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True, but then why are "centipedes" not "centipodes" or "centipods"? It is an ambiguous prefix, to me anyway.

Paradox said:

Ah, but then there is PEDIAtrician.

Yes, but there are also pedodontists.

I find that “pediarchy” rolls off of the tongue better than pedarchy or pedoarchy (*ouch*). I also like the -archy choice better than the -ocracy choice as it keeps the form of Patriarchy and Matriarchy.

I agree.

Leo, to me, your surname (Kulonosen) looks Finnish or at least Uralic, am I right? (Go ahead and tell me even I'm wrong; I'd like to know its origin.)

And, Grant and Martha, speaking of orthoepy, when was the last time either of you talked with Lederer or Elster? I have some of their books and know that if they (R.L. and C.H.E., that is) ever visited the forums here they'd have alot of valuable insight.

What do you think about Chuck's Big Book of Beastly Mispronunciations?

Personally, I found it a bit meandering. It has some very helpful things in there, but it also has some orthoepic prescriptions which I simply cannot follow; e.g., Celtic¹ with a soft [s]. True, the majority say “SEL-tick” when referring to the basketball team, but most linguists (myself included) pronounce it “KEL-tick” elsewhere.

One thing he seems to take for granted is that he happens to own (or at least have access to) numerous unabridged dictionaries, whereas the average American² is lucky to have a lonely desk dictionary. There is not one dictionary that Elster stands by consistently; they all have their flaws. All dictionaries and manuals on orthoepy do. Except, of course, BBoBM. I understand Elster's mother was a die-hard by-swearer³ of Websters II. There are even some pronunciations she used which were sanctioned by WII which Elster has decried (though these are admittedly a precious few). But with Charles' pronouncements, there are no two ways about it, are there? My main point is that it would've been nice to have at least one other person co-write the book with him; that way we'd be able to get a second opinion. It's just hard for me to trust a single author to keep a non-biased stance on such a broad area as the correct pronunciation of a dialect/language?.

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¹FWIW, it comes from Greek ?????? (with a hard [k]), and for a while English had Keltic as an alternate spelling. French say their version with [s], but Italians theirs with [?]. Whom should we follow?
²The book, as you know, deals mainly with American pronunciations.
³That is, she swore by it as an undisputable authority.
?The latter, if you consider American a separate language from British English (a.k.a. English-English).