rhytidiadelphus
R-H-Y-T-I-D-I-A-D-E-L-P-H-U-S
Said rye-tid-ee-a-DEL-fus. In full, Rhytidiadelphus squarrosus.
Springy turf-moss is the coarse red-stemmed moss that lawn rakes drag out by the barrowload. Its name is the longest on this site and it fails in four different places at once: the rh, the y, the middle syllables and the ph.
Why the sound and the spelling disagree
Six syllables, an unsounded h in the first of them and a ph in the last. The stem is the Greek rhytis, rhytid-, a wrinkle, for the crumpled leaves; adelphos is Greek for brother and marks the genus as a near relative of Rhytidium.
A genus of large, robust mosses of grassland, lawns and woodland floors, with wrinkled leaves and stiff reddish stems.
Spellings people type after hearing it
- rhytadiadelphusan unstressed vowel blurring
- ritidiadelphustwo sound decisions at once
- rhytidiadelfusph doing the work of f
- rhitidiadelphusy standing in for i
- rhietidiadelphusy standing in for i
- rhytidiadelphisan ending that says something else
- rytidiadelfustwo sound decisions at once
- rhytidiadelphasan ending that says something else
- rhitidiadelfustwo sound decisions at once
- rytidiadelphusa letter that is written but not said
- rhytidiadelfistwo sound decisions at once
- rytidiadelphistwo sound decisions at once
More in Mosses: polytrichum, leucobryum.