Timeline for Pronunciation of PhD
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
13 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 20, 2019 at 6:07 | vote | accept | Konstantin Morenko | ||
| Dec 1, 2018 at 16:03 | comment | added | 1006a | Do you know when this pronunciation was adopted by/ossified in English, or whether, historically, PhD was ever pronounced "phi D" (fie/fee dee), "phil D", or "PD" in any English-speaking country? I'm curious because in the US, academia-affiliated organizations with the Greek letter Phi in their name either pronounce it in full or abbreviate it to just P (e.g. Alpha Phi Omega is sometimes APO and sometimes A Phi O; Phi Beta Kappa is always PBK). I've never heard of one using PH ("pee aitch"). And then there is the "C Phil" degree, which my alma mater awards on the way to the PhD, not the PhilD. | |
| Nov 27, 2018 at 22:45 | comment | added | Christopher Schultz | @JanusBahsJacquet I should have been more clear; my last name is an obvious counter-example of my claim. Germans generally don't use c as the initial letter of a word. At least not in any native-words (e.g. Cello doesn't count). | |
| Nov 27, 2018 at 20:29 | comment | added | Janus Bahs Jacquet | @ChristopherSchultz Most Germans habitually use the letter c for a great many things. | |
| Nov 27, 2018 at 17:28 | history | edited | Mark Beadles | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
"would"
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| Nov 27, 2018 at 16:11 | comment | added | Matt Burland | then it be something like "DP" or "DoP" - Note that Oxford University (and possibly others?) awards DPhil instead of PhDs | |
| Nov 27, 2018 at 15:17 | comment | added | Christopher Schultz | @Flater ElectroCardioGram is pronounced EKG in English because it was invented by Germans, who habitually don't use the letter c for anything. | |
| Nov 27, 2018 at 14:30 | comment | added | Flater | @Joker_vD: In a similar vein, ECG can be spelled EKG because it's an abbreviation for ElectroCardioGram and using a K retains the correct pronunciation of the C. Note that both spelling and pronunciation can be affected, or only one of them (some doctors write ECG but say EKG and afaik that is also accepted) Abbreviations sometimes introduce ambiguity (such as the P in "PH", or the C for a "K/S") and therefore the abbreviation is adjusted to remove the introduced ambiguity. | |
| Nov 27, 2018 at 9:55 | comment | added | gsamaras | As a Greek, I can safely upvote this. | |
| Nov 26, 2018 at 21:38 | comment | added | GEdgar | "that's a single letter representing an aspirated π" ... or at least it was at some time in Greek history. Even after the Greek pronunciation of φ changed, the Latin transliteration ph was retained. | |
| Nov 26, 2018 at 20:53 | comment | added | Mark Beadles | @Joker_vD More like late Renaissance German scholars, but yeah. | |
| Nov 26, 2018 at 20:43 | comment | added | Joker_vD | So the reason the abbreviation for "Filosophy Doctor" is not pronounced "Eff Dee" is because medieval English scholars liked Latin way too much? | |
| Nov 26, 2018 at 19:21 | history | answered | Mark Beadles | CC BY-SA 4.0 |