Subject: Re: CCL:PRONUNCIATION ON CONFORMER

From: [email-masked] (Toni Kazic)
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 12:47:15 -0600

Peter,

I don't have a good Latin dictionary here, but a quick squint at the 1966
edition of Merriam-Webster's dictionary (largish, but certainly not the
OED) makes me a bit skeptical of your etymology, though I confess I
sometimes used to say CONformer.

First some background.  In Latin

	conformare is the verb,
	conformation, conformatio the noun (I don't have my
Latin-grammar-for-idiots-like-me handy, so I can't spot which declension)

from which we derive our English words

	to conform
	conformation
	conformer.

I presume their only difference is one of gerund-ness, so that the verb is
the ultimate root.  In Latin, I see no reason why the stress wouldn't be on
the penultimate and antepenult syllables, so conforMAre and conforMAtion.
I would like to hear from someone who knows Latin on these points!

Now in English, the dictionary gives the following pronunciations.  I'll
completely capitalize the syllable with primary stress, and separate the
secondarily-stressed syllable by //, and optional secondary stress by ||.
Be aware that syllables for spelling and phonetic syllables are evidently
not the same, even in a given word.  I am separating the (mostly) phonetic
syllables by blanks.  Notice the spelling isn't the IPA or anything close!

	con FORM			ME <- MF <- L
	con FOR mable			
	con FORM ance
	con FOR mer
	con FOR /mism/			F
	con /form/ aBIL i ty
	/con/ |for| MA tion		L

So the stress is shifting between the second and third syllable, and notice
the position of the "m" sound slides back and forth across that boundary.
I suspect for many of us that "m" sound gets doubled, so it ends up on both
syllables simultaneously.

What is going on?  The etymologies are sketchy so I'll guess.  The verb
"conform" comes into English quite early, and then mutates into adjectives
and nouns ("conformable", "conformance", "conformer") but retains the
stress on the second syllable.  This is certainly where I would stress the
modern French, so perhaps I've guessed wrong about the Latin stress.
"conformism" comes from modern French, so keeps its secondary stress.
The rule breaks at "conformability", when I suspect evolution lets English
stress rules dominate.  "conformation" is in English a straight borrowing
from Latin, and so retains its (classical?  surely Vulgate) pronunciation,
allowing for compression of the last four letters into one sound.

Notice that in no case is the stress on the first syllable.  Whether the
chemical sense of the term derives from "conform" or "conformation" --- and
I would vote that it's an extension of the sense of "conformer", as defined
in 1966 ("one that conforms") --- you can't use it to justify what I agree
may be the most common pronunciation.  I suspect CONformer comes by analogy
to ISOmer.  It seems to me one might wish to retain the different stress to
distinguish among the different connotations of the word, but if so that
usage will be established over time.  This is a case where everyone
world-wide votes with their mouths ;-)!

But Peter, I'm not giving up on the plural nouns data and media (and
indices, and formulae, and basilica, and . . . )!

Cheers,

Toni Kazic
Institute for Biomedical Computing
Washington University
[email-masked]
http://ibc.wustl.edu/~toni