Pronunciation

Yglesias:

I don’t have a problem with the fact that Barack Obama says “Pah-kee-stahn” when referring to the country to the west of India. Nor do I have a problem with the fact that Obama says “Afghanistan” in the customary American manner. But given that the two countries are adjacent to one another and often come up in the same speech, it’s really infuriating to see him offer the two pronunciations in tandem. If you’re going to say “Pah-kee-stahn” you should say “Af-gah-nee-stahn” and if you’re going to say “Afghanistan” you should say “Pakistan.”

That’s just how I feel.

That's true. And I'm happy he says it, because it reminds me that one of the major problems in the Periodic Table of Elements is that the 17 column, the halogens, has a serious pronunciation issue. The elements, reading top to bottom, are Flourine (pronounced floor-een), Chlorine (pronounced cloor-een), Bromine (pronounced bro-meen), Iodine (pronounced...wait a second...aye-oh-dine???), and Astatine (pronounced as-tah-teen).
So all the halogens end with "ine" and all but one of them end with the pronunciation sound "een". What's the deal with Iodine?


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