Answer stupid English question!?!

[JennsPeeps]

And now to claim my title of language dork (please no, mods...)

http://wheelockslatin.com/chapters/introduction/introduction_vowels.html

 

[tomstephens]

I was wrong? Shame on me.
In the immortal words of Ralph, "Me fail english? That's unpossible!"

 

[patandchickens]

Mimosa with a short i, definitely, never heard it any other way.

For arbor vitae, IME the commonest pronunciations at least in the Eastern half of the US seem to be "v-eye-t-uh" or "v-eye-t-ee", but you will also hear "v-ee-t-uh" or "v-ee-t-ee".

Horticultural latin pronunciations are in significant part just a matter of tradition (local, academic, or wherever the person who's saying the name happened to pick up most of their vocabulary). So you have the "CLEM-atis" faction vs the "clem-ATIS" faction. Don't even talk to me about "Cotoneaster" <vbg>.

Really truly, as a card-carrying PhD biologist and former professor, I assure you that for Latin names, there is someone out there who pronounces it pretty much any possible way. You can pronounce things whatever way you want to, and stand firm in the knowledge that you are not alone; or you can follow the lead of whatever buncha people you're hangin' with at the moment and say it their preferred way. Whichever you want. Anyone who gets themselves into a swivet over how you pronounce Latin binomials is just an idiot with too much time on their hands

Pat (raised with "arbor v-eye-t-ee" and "CLEM-atis", but openminded [if occasionaly eyerolling] about any other pronunciation as long as I can figure out what it means)