The Palindromists documentary explores a mini-controversy: How do you pronounce the word palindromist? Some people put the stress on the first syllable, but other people and reference works, including the Oxford English Dictionary, stress the second syllable. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “How Do You Pronounce “Palindromist”?”
I was talking earlier about this movie that I’m so excited about that has to do with palindromes.
And the title of the movie, as I said, is The Palindromists.
But a lot of people don’t like that pronunciation, it turns out.
It’s sort of a mini-controversy in the palindrome world.
Yeah, that’s right.
Will Shorts, the NPR puzzle master and the crossword puzzle editor for the New York Times, insists that it should be palindromist because he thinks the other way, palindromist, is pretentious.
Yeah, snooty.
And a bunch of other people in the palindrome community agree with him.
But other people agree with Mark Saltvites, the editor of the online magazine The Palindromist.
So I don’t know which way to go.
I think I prefer palindromists, but there is something fluid about palindromists.
That’s kind of lovely.
Yeah, it’s sort of flutist versus flautist, right?
But I am in the palindromist camp, and I looked it up in the Oxford English Dictionary, and both the British and American pronunciations that they offer are palindromists.
They don’t even allow for palindromist, but I mean…
Yeah, that’s what Will says in the movies, that dictionaries say palindromist, but then he kind of rolls his eyes and scoffs.
But he’s an expert at things.
He’s used to the reference works around him not being up to snuff.
Well, you know, maybe it’s appropriate that a word like that describing people who play with palindromes would go both ways when it comes to pronunciation.
Well, it makes me wonder about anagramist.
Anagramist?
Anagrammers?
Anagrammers or anagrammers.
I don’t know.
929-9673.
