Quote:
Originally posted by Chief'sDad
I thought I had a pretty good vocabulary until I went to the Great Lakes regional. It shounded to me like The Announcer kept calling a tether..a "probiscus"
For those who wondered, but not enough to bother looking it up, here is the definition - straight from The Random House Dictionary.
Pro.bo.cis, n. 1. The trunk of an elephant 2. Any long flexible snout
Apparently pronounced with a soft c. That is, probosis, accent on the pro
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Thanks Dad,
You learn something every day...
I have always heard it pronounced pro-'bos-kus (and I thought it was spelled with a -cus), but your post prompted me to consult my Merriam-Webster's. (I don't think we need to go into which one is better.
) It does indeed give the soft C pronunciation as prefered, but also gives the K version as an alternate, and it puts the accent on -bos.
But here's the kicker: the plural is pro-bos-ci-des! (Actually it gives pro-bos-cis-es as the first variant, but I like probosicides, and I think I'll start using it!
)