The Pronunciation of the Style of Mead

[Yarmur]

Good Day All,

Where might one find a guide to the correct pronunciation of the styles of mead. I have done a search on the message board and no topics were found. A simple question I have yet to find answered even anywhere on the net. Just curious if I have been using the correct sounds (short or long)on the vowels.

Chris

 

[finburger]

Good question! I'd like to know how to pronounce melomel.

 

[WRATHWILDE]

I pronounce it... mel o mel ;D

Wrathwilde

 

[Muirghein Tarot]

Well it doesn't matter how you pronounce "Metheglin" people who hear you talking about it in public will still think your running a Meth lab! LoL.. has happened one time already!!
Tarot.

 

[Yarmur]

LOL! That was one of the first things that came to my mind when I first saw the word metheglin.

cyser - is it "c" as in cider or a "c" as in cat kinda like the word kaiser

melomel - is it like state above mel-o-mel or possibly meh-lom-el or could the "e's" all be long kinda like meal-o-meal

metheglin - me-the-glin or meth-eh-glin or meh-the-glin or many of the other possibilities

pyment - it is pie-ment or pea-ment

Disclaimer: I am by no means an English professor so please excuse my rude attempts at creating the pronunciation keys for the above.

Chris

 

[JamesP]

Here's my guess (or dictionary link):

(emphasis on the apostrophy)




NAME


PRONOUNCIATION




Mead

M.'ee.d




Hydromel


Hy'.dre.mel




Sack mead


Sak'




Melomel


Mel'.o.mel




Metheglin


Me.theg'.lin




Morat


Mor'.at





Acerglin


As'.cerg.lin





Pyment


Py'.ment





Hippocras

Hip'.po.cras




Cyser


Sy'.zer




Braggot


Brag'.got




Oxymel


Ox'.ee.mel




Rhodomel


Rod'.o.mel




Capsicumel


Caps'.sic.cu.mel




Omphacomel


Om'.pha.co.mel




T'ej


T'.Ej (Ej as in Edge)

 

[lostnbronx]

I would add:

Bochet Bo-SHAY

Rhyzamel RISE-uh-mel

Lactomel LACK-toe (as in "big toe")-mel

I pronounce Acerglin as ACHE (as in aches and pains)-er-glin

-David

 

[WRATHWILDE]

Lostnbronx,
Being that acer comes from aceraceae which is the family to which the maple tree belongs... I would go with the pronunciation given to the scientific name Ay-ser. It also appears that glin and glyn are the wrong suffixes to have been given. I believe Devon Miller first suggested Acerglyn for a purely maple wine in mead lovers digest #1027 July 2003. It's the earliest reference I can find. I think this was from the mistaken belief that glin was the suffix of metheglin from welsh meddyglyn, but it's not. Meddyg is welsh for medicinal + llyn for liquor (it looks like the rule is the first L is dropped if added to a consonant), so it should have been acerlyn. Acerglyn was then picked up as a possible mead term by our own long missing ThirstyViking November 15, 2003 in the thread Acerglyn? Mapple Mead. The name didn't stick as even ThirstyViking kept referring to his batch as maple mead instead of Acerglyn.
The topic was revisited in March 2004 where a honey maple mead would be called Acermel, and that a purely Maple fermentation has long been referred to in the wine making circles as Maple Wine. See the discussion here. Acermel doesn't seem to have caught on. The current popularity of the term Acerglyn probably comes from my adoption and active promotion of the term after making my first honey maple mead that scored perfect in every category (except documentation and presentation) at Pennsic. Masterbrewers and the populace were crazy for it. Since then the term has exploded on the forum and the furor over the naming of it seems to have died down and been accepted. I can find no trace of acerglyn on Gotmead between ThirstyViking's post on 3/10/04 and the start of my Acerglyn 3/15/2005. I had read Meadlovers Digest #1027 but not ThirstyVikings Posts concerning Acerglyn, and although ThirstyViking makes no mention of MLD - it is the only mention of Acerglyn I find predating his, which leads me to believe we both borrowed it from the same source. I discovered all this trying to research the pronunciation, as the Google hits for Acerglyn are limited to just a handful of sites.

Wrathwilde

 

[lostnbronx]

Wrath,

Some good research here, thanks! But this is flirting with the subject of mead taxonomy, and that's one I won't participate in again until (hopefully) the IMA takes on the task. Even then, I doubt they should have the discussion in an open forum. Each time the subject has come up that I've seen, it's generated some really heated and unpleasant discourse. Controversy is inevitable with a topic this close to some people's hearts (mine included), and that's all to the good I suppose, but I'm retired from it for now.

As for the pronunciation of acerglyn and/or its etymology, thanks for the info!

-David