Let's draw the battle lines in the fight over how to pronounce Nomic!

If you say "Nomic" with a long 'o' ("Noe-mic"), put your name here:

Daniel Jewell
Chuck
Dan Marsh (aka The Governor)
DougChatham
GallivantingTripper
IanKelly
JeffWeston
JoelUckelman
KevanDavis
Mark Hedden
Richard Hunt
TyrethAli
Zefram
DanKnapp
Toreun
TommyJack
Timmmm
John Jacobsma http://jacobsma.net/
Frodo Crockett
Quazie
Dyslexic Q-Thief
Nodal Nim
prash-n-rao
HanHighland
MichaelSlone
Hawkeye Parker

Or, if you say "Nomic" with a short 'o' ("Nommic"), put your name here:

AndreEngels
Blob
CraigDaniel
Elysion
Graeme Jefferis
lilith
Michael
OleAndersen
RichHolmes
WildCard
BreadMan
Wonko
Raf
Tony
Kamikaze
David Westbrook
Simon
JoelGluth
SeventyFifthTrombone
Mark Hare
Casey Smith
Geoff Madison


Are you sure you have this the right way around? Seems to me like "Nommic" is a long 'O'. Anyway, I pronounce it 'No-mic' -- bd

'Long o' and 'short o' refer to the days when English had contrastive vowel length. O was a single sound, like the o in No. However, there was also a sound like the oa in boar, spelt oa. Since this was also the sound of an O in oCe where C is any single consonant, this is what is usually meant by 'long o', by analogy with long e. (The ee sound, the eCe sound, and the ea sound were distinct a thousand years ago. The latter two merged first.) Anyway, the long and short of it is that people usually mean by 'long o' the sound of most instances of the digraph oa, which is the way you say Nomic, while they mean by 'short o' the sound of older short os - the sound everyone else uses that isn't anything like the old o sound anymore. -- CraigDaniel

I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say, but I learned to call the sound of 'home' long, and the sound of 'hot' short. The sound of 'boar' is more like a diphthong, not associated with either name. In any case, I agree that "Nommic" would definitely be a short 'o'. -- BreadMan

"Nommic" could go either way - doubled letters usually imply short vowels, but think about the 'cosmic syllable', 'omm', which is pronounced like 'ohm'. -- Wonko

That syllable has no standardized spelling; one 'm' has been used as often as two, and it frequently comes with more. The multiplicity of 'm' in this case means that its sound is prolonged, not that the vowel is shortened. -- BreadMan

I just assumed it was based on the Greek word "nomos," which means law, and (as Peter pointed out on the NomicOrNomic page) uses the Greek omicron, or short 'o'. Not that we have to go by the Greek, but as a result, I just say "Nommic" naturally.

While the original language from which we borrow/steal words may pronounce their letters in a certain way, doesn't mean that that pronunciation carries over. Consider zeitgeist. If we pronounced it in the original German way it would be tzeitgeist, but I imagine most say zeitgeist (Anglicized z)--Daniel

But logic comes from "logos", and Nomic comes from "nomos", so we should pronounce it "nommic". --a reader.

I might once have been agreeable to call it Nohmic, but not since I've heard of BlogNomic; the assonance is just too irresistable. -- SeventyFifthTrombone


NomicOrNomic