Re: men, elves, wolves, and robots; was: man, etc.

Mark J. Reed wrote at 2004-12-26 15:52:00 (-0500)
 > On Sun, Dec 26, 2004 at 08:28:22PM +0000, Joe wrote:
 > > # 1 wrote:
 > > >is it [dZinoid], [dZinojd], [Zinoid], or [Zinojd]?
 > >
 > > [gajnOjd], I guess.  Perhaps [dZInOjd].  One of those.
 >
 > Almost certainly the former.  English words with the "gyno-" root
 > (e.g.  "gynecology", as Sally mentioned) are (nearly?) univerally
 > pronounced with /gai_^n/.

Actually, most of the examples I can think of don't - "androgyny",
"misogyny", "polygyny".  But _initially_, yes, I would expect it to be
/gai/-.  The _New Oxford Dictionary of English_ lists about 10 such
words - interestingly, while they all allow /gVI/- (that is, /gai/-)
as an acceptable pronunciation, they also all list /dZVI/- (or
sometimes /dZI/-) variants.  In a minority of cases, the /dZ/- form is
listed first, presumably representing the more standard pronunciation.

Regarding Sally's question, I have from time to time come across
"gynoid" used to refer to female-type humanoid robots, but my
impression is that it remains very obscure relative to "android".