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"Mescaline" is a misnomer

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red22

red22

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The "e" at the end dictates that the word is pronounced -een -- as in ketamine. Mescalin is not pronounced that way, however. I don't know where the "e" was introduced, but it's just wrong. Huxley spelled it "mescalin" and I think other older pieces of literature did so as well.
 
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the commonly accepted modern terminology for alkaloids is, they end in -ine. You can see for yourself, in English we say "caffeine, nicotine, morphine, strychnine, etc" and so on, with -ine. (Heroin is a brand name, the INN is diamorphine, btw).

if you look in Clarke's, the Merck index, etc, they all say "mescaline". So mescaline is what we call it (nowadays). (in older times, yes, people did use -in as the ending, and still do today in e.g. German. (coffein, mescalin, strychnin). but it is considered an obsolete usage.)
 
That would mean that the pronunciation changed. In English, it's "mes-ka-leen"
 
Maybe because it was first isolated by a German so the pronounciation stuck?
 
Many al aloids where found by germans and they are always - ine in english
 
A person should strive to understand language and use it correctly. If I went into my local Micro Center and asked for and referred to an HDMI cable as an "HD cable" -- as my mom's boyfriend once referred to it -- I would be looked down on. Why should I not want to have a complete understanding of a word that belongs to a topic of my interest?
 
I'm pretty sure if you pronounced mescaline either way, people would know what you're talking about.

Fighting over -in/-ine is ... beyond silly.
 
There's a difference between speaking/writing in a way sufficient for people to know what you're talking about and speaking/writing in a correct manner. There's a certain dignity is speaking/writing correctly. Language rules should be honored, not bent.
 
Hah. This is the most pointless debate I've seen on here in a while.

Look, language is a fluid entity. There are no hard and fast rules. For example, "been," is not pronounced the same as, "bean," even though both 'ee' and 'ea' are typically associated with a long e sound. Anyone who has tried to learn a second language should be familiar with the fact that, for every general rule, there are lots of exceptions.

If you need further persuasion that language is and should be fluid, you should read Stephen Pinker's discussion of ebonics in The Language Instinct. (Actually, you might enjoy the entire book, but I'm not sure that the whole thing is relevant here.) This unique form of English has its own internally-consistent grammatical structure and system of pronunciation, and is often more expressive than conventional English.
 
red22 said:
There's a difference between speaking/writing in a way sufficient for people to know what you're talking about and speaking/writing in a correct manner. There's a certain dignity is speaking/writing correctly. Language rules should be honored, not bent.
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While some languages to have formal governing bodies, e.g. L'Académie française, English does not. I mean, I do rather like the language and try to do right by it (though I keep to my local dialect), but pedantry is for the pretentious.
red22 said:
I would be looked down on
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If you're worried about being looked down upon, you really shouldn't be doing drugs. Or learning about drugs, they're the work of the Devil, and that's all you need to know in polite society.
 
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red22 said:
A person should strive to understand language and use it correctly. If I went into my local Micro Center and asked for and referred to an HDMI cable as an "HD cable" -- as my mom's boyfriend once referred to it -- I would be looked down on. Why should I not want to have a complete understanding of a word that belongs to a topic of my interest?
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haha. you would be looked down on lol? how old are you that you care what some douche you buy shit off thinks about you. i don't care if someone thinks i don't know what i'm talking about. it doesn't matter. its just a person in a shop who i have no deep or meaningful connection to.
 
I'm sure your judgement is duly noted, now while I personally hardly care either I still think people here deserve the freedom to talk about whatever they wanna talk about as long as it is on the topic of psychedelics. Anyone who is not interested in this one can just go find another thread that IS interesting to them, come on if you can't be helpful just don't post.
 
Solipsis said:
come on if you can't be helpful just don't post.
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Seriously, this. Why is it that threads like these get all the attention and as a result get riddled with brainless crap?

Back on topic, who says your pronunciation is the right one? According to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English language you're supposed to pronounce it as follows: /ˈmɛskəˌlin/ (you can hear it here), though /-lɪn/ is accepted as well. At any rate you're neither wrong nor right, and really it doesn't matter much.
 
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