Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1925-10-30
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACEVELL.

Just as 1 thought I had settled,
with the aid Of the American Gladiolus
Society, the pronunciation of the name
of that charming flower, along comes
j. =. S. of the Department of Agri.
culture with a kick about the plural.
The society, it will be recalled,
adopted "gladi-o-lus," long Co." with
the accent on that syllable, as "ofii-
cial' for both singular and plural
Readers will also recall that the
writer of this column pointed with
pride" to the fact that he had adj
vanced this pronunciation last Spring.
My correspondent says:
Il wish to thank you for the boost
you gave the glad in The Star of
October 16. / am also interested In
your statement of the action of the
A. G.. S. 1t is unfortunate that the
society did not make a Clear-cut de-
cision in favor of English as is
THE English plural of gladiolus is
thoroughly established, and any at
tempt to substitute a plural that is
even more un-English than the Latin
plural can only tend to defeat the
very purpose aimed at.
For the good of the glad l wish
the stores would deal more fairly with
respect to the bulbs. They could sell
No. l or No. 2 bulbs of many of the
standard varieties at so to go cents a
dozen and make handsome profit.
And they should not offer No. 3
bulbs to the general public, at least
not without making 1t clear to their
customers that they are No. and
not full size.
IF you want to test out some va
rieties of unusual quality and mod
crate price, try Anna Eberius (purple
oil
low self"
The English plural of "gladiolus"
referred to by my correspondent, of
course, Is simply 'gladioluses."
which form is given by Webster 8
Dictionary. While it is perfectly
good English, it IS unfortunately
somewhat clumsy, both TO the eye
and to the ear.
l must confess that every time
hear the plural pronounced that way
I cannot help but think of that
humble (yet regarded by some men
as necessary article. a pair of sus-
penders. often called "galluses."
For the sake of simplicity. as we'll
as conformity. therefore, the Amer
lean Gladiolus Society adopted as
official" one spelling and pronun-
citation for both the singular and
plural, and I am not at all sure but
what we shall find in the long run
that they did right.
There has been enough monkey
business" about the name of this
wonderful flower, now a favorite
with thousands. and destined to. year
by year. take an even more promi-
nent p. place in American flower
gardens.
Here was a lovely thing, a miracle
of beauty, a tribute to modern horti-
culture as well. since the modern
varieties are such flowers as never
were seen before they were evolved
here was this lovely thing. l say,
forced to be called one way by one
man, another way by another man.
Perhaps 1 should say that the
glad" was called one thing by men,
another by women. Perhaps out
of 10 male beings pronounced IL
"gladi- illus" Nine out of ten wom-
en-, however, preferred to call it
glad eye olus" with a bearing down
accent on the second syllable.
That was correct according to the
Latin, they would tell you with with
ering contempt, if you dared to
demonstrate. They quoted the great
Century Dictionary. too.
"A gentleman and a scholar, for
whose opinion in such matters l
have the highest respect, has called
my attention to the fact that there
Is no authority for the eye pro-
nunciation of 81" in Harper's Latin
Dictionary.
He showed that the only pronuncia-