| Strana na temi: < [1 2] | Where do the words kudoz, browniz and powwow come from? Objavljivač niti: Javier Herrera (X)
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Javier Herrera wrote:
Nice bedtime reading. Thanks for your answers, they've caused a few more questions: how ON EARTH do you pronounce kudoz?
I assume powwow rhymes with 'how about', makes sense. But is the word very widely used in American English? I never heard it in Britain.
Thanks again.
I also assume that powwow is pronounced as "how about". It's a question of rhyming. To tell you the truth, I've never heard it in British or American English here, in Argentina. Happy friend's day for everybody!
| | | | | Book of english usage, on line | Jul 26, 2004 |
This is what is says on the subject:
Kudos: Because of the s on the end, this word, which comes from Greek, is often treated as a plural form, when in fact it is etymologically singular. But even people who correctly treat the word syntactically as a singular often pronounce it as if it were a plural. So properly, we would expect the final syllable to rhyme with loss, but more often than not it is pronounced like doze. Both pronuncia... See more This is what is says on the subject:
Kudos: Because of the s on the end, this word, which comes from Greek, is often treated as a plural form, when in fact it is etymologically singular. But even people who correctly treat the word syntactically as a singular often pronounce it as if it were a plural. So properly, we would expect the final syllable to rhyme with loss, but more often than not it is pronounced like doze. Both pronunciations are now considered standard.
http://www.bartleby.com/64/C007/0118.html
Everyone likes to get kudos, but how much—or how many? Kudos means “praise.” It comes from a Greek word that meant “glory” and is thus one of those words like congeries that look like plurals but are etymologically singular. So if you want to get the Greek right, you must use a singular verb: Kudos is (not are) due her for her brilliant work.
This is not to say you will never see kudos used with a plural verb or treated as if it were a count noun meaning “a praising remark,” as in They have received many kudos for their research. It happens quite frequently. Some writers have tried to defend this use of kudos and even the singular form kudo, on the grounds that these usages follow the same pattern of words such as pea and cherry. These words were shortened from nouns ending in -s that were mistakenly thought to be plural. But if you decide to join in championing this view and offer someone a few kudos, don’t be surprised if you are accused of being ignorant of kudos’s Greek origins.
Oddly enough, people who are careful to treat the word only as a singular often pronounce it as if it were a plural. Etymology would require that the final consonant be pronounced as a voiceless (s), as we do in pathos, another word derived from Greek, rather than as a voiced (z). ▲ Collapse
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