In a recent post, before we officially had Tropical Storm Beryl, I wrote that I could "hardly Beryl the suspense." Alas, this pun turns on "Beryl" being pronounced like "barrel." But now comes NHC forecaster Stacy Stewart telling me I'm wrong:
THE LAST RECON PASS THROUGH THE CENTER OF BERYL THIS MORNING INDICATED THE PRESSURE HAD DROPPED ANOTHER MILLIBAR DOWN TO 1004 MB. FLIGHT-LEVEL WINDS AT 850 MB WERE 52 KT IN THE EASTERN QUADRANT IN CONVECTION...AND THAT IS THE JUSTIFICATION FOR INCREASING THE INTENSITY TO 40 KT. ALSO...THE CORRECT PRONUNCIATION OF TROPICAL STORM BERYL IS BERLE... LIKE THE LAST NAME OF MILTON BERLE.
So forgive my failed bad pun. Good thing we have such well informed forecasters at the National Hurricane Center. Meawhile, Jeff Masters has good stuff on the storm's recent intensification. It's about to run over some warm seawater, although nobody really expects it to become a hurricane. It could conceivably make landfall in New England, however....
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Ahh... you must be one of those Midwesterners who think that "merry", "marry" and "Mary" are homonyms.
Funny, I always thought the pronunciation of "Beryllium" was "bar-il-ium".**
My dictionary also gives the phonetic pronunciation as "bÉrÄl'ÄÉm"
**Who even knew that Milton Berle had a chemical element named after him?
By the way, Milton Berle's given was "Mendel Berlinger". Germans would pronounce "berl" very similar to "barrel" so in that regard, you were not too far off after all.
Chris has said he's from Nawlins, but as for me, I read Beryl as if it is based on the name of a gemstone, which I presume has lots of beryllium.
Uncle Miltie has nothing on Mooney,
Who knows it is fun to be looney.
So let's all call it Ber-yl
Lest our wit be called sterile
And our humor index declared puny.
Damn, Fred, that is really good....
You're assuming that the forecasters know how Milton Berle's name is pronounced.
Hmph. They can declare whatever they want, but your pronunciation is not incorrect. I've always pronounced it that way, and my authority is the original Bedazzled, where Dudley Moore's character winds up as a nun in the Order of the Leaping Beryllians, named for St. Beryl. The song they sing makes it quite clear that it's pronounced Ber-yl.
Since Beryl is in fact a mineral, and since the entire mineralogical community proncounces it like "barrel," I think your initial pronunciation was just fine.
Since the name comes from the jewel beryl, I would stick with the proununciation of the stone: http://reference.allrefer.com/encyclopedia/B/beryl.html. Your pun clearly works.
I'm none the wiser. "I can hardly barrel the suspense"?