Today's post concerns the pronunciation of this plant:
Poyn-seh-TEE-uh?
Poyn-seh-ah ?
For over twenty years the holiday season brings with it a bit of discourse between theHansMan and me. on several different levels.
One level is, simply stated, we don't pronounce the name of this flower the same. That causes most of our conversations to be peppered with the word, "poinsettia."
"Did you buy dog food today?"
"Yes, and I bought some poinsettia chews for them, too."
Each of us emphasizing the word POINSETTIA for effect.
"Did you have the oil in the truck checked today?"
"Yes, and they balanced and aligned the poinsettias, too."
This highly intelligent form of conversing to antagonize each other is carried over into about everything we talk about. You can use your creative minds to just imagine where the word 'poinsettia' can be substituted.
TheHansMan and I have agreed to abide by the consensus of the blogging and Facebook world. Here is the million dollar question:
How do you pronounce POINSETTIA?
1) poyn-seh-TEE-uh
2) poyn-seh-AH
3) or some other way
We will forever use the pronunciation of the one that receives the most votes.
Wikipedia has THIS TO SAY.
Other tidbits about this flower:
Is this flower poisonous?
No, says POISINDEX. Ingesting this plant will make you sick but it probably won't kill you. A fifty pound child would have to eat more than 1.25 pounds of poinsettia bracts (about 500-600 leaves) to exceed the experimental doses.
Question # 1: Whose fifty pound kid was used to conduct this experiment ?
Question #2: What was the experimental dose? Did they use an entire greenhouse full of poinsettias?
Question #3: Wouldn't eating 500-600 of these leaves kill a horse?
Just some Food For Thought...pun intended.
Just for the record . . .
Some say poinsetta and some say poinsettia. In both cases, either pronunciation is acceptable. This traditional holiday houseplant, a native of Mexico, is named for Joel Roberts Poinsett, the first United States Ambassador to Mexico (circa 1820).
In Mexico, the poinsettia is known as Flor de Nochebuena, or Christmas Eve Flower. You may also see it written as La Flor de la Nochebuena, which means Flower of Christmas Eve. In Spain, Puerto Rico, and other Central America countries it's known as Flor de Pascua or Pascua, meaning Christmas Flower.
