marchantia
M-A-R-C-H-A-N-T-I-A
Said mar-KAN-tee-uh, often mar-KAN-sha. In full, Marchantia polymorpha.
The commonest thallose liverwort in Britain, a flat green ribbon with gemma cups like tiny splash pots. Anyone writing the name from hearing it has to decide what the middle sounds like, and both plausible answers are wrong.
Why the sound and the spelling disagree
The name is a person: Nicolas Marchant, the French botanist who died in 1678. A French ch would be said sh, botanical Latin says k, and the -tia ending drifts towards sha in English mouths. Three sounds, one spelling, and the spelling is the surname with a Latin ending on it.
A genus of flat, ribbon-like liverworts of damp soil, paths and greenhouse pots, with umbrella-shaped stalks carrying the reproductive parts.
Spellings people type after hearing it
- markanshatwo sound decisions at once
- marshanshatwo sound decisions at once
- merchantiaan unstressed vowel blurring
- markansiatwo sound decisions at once
- murchantiaan unstressed vowel blurring
- marrchantiaa doubled consonant under the stress
- marchentiaan unstressed vowel blurring
- marchanshaan ending that says something else
More in Liverworts and hornworts: lunularia, anthoceros.