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From: Andreas Leitgeb <avl@logic.at>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.programmer
Subject: Re: pronunciation of "ArithmeticException"
Supersedes: <slrnoabvqb.pvm.avl@logic.at>
Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2017 20:28:53 -0000 (UTC)
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Eric Sosman <esosman@comcast-dot-net.invalid> wrote:
> On 2/16/2017 1:31 PM, Andreas Leitgeb wrote:
>> Andreas Leitgeb <avl@logic.at> wrote:
>>> Stefan Ram <ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:
>>>>   The noun is pronounced »a'rithmetic«.
>>> Iirc, the English noun ends in -cs: arithmetics.
>> Apparently, I seem to have generalized the "-ics" ending from
>> Mathematics onto other words with similar (Greek) etymology.
>> Thanks for pointing out, that "Arithmetic" doesn't usually
>> have this trailing "s". I live and learn.
>      Were it not for your anemic constitution and choleric
> disposition, someone would surely award you a bishopric in
> recognitoin [sic] of your study of Attic languages.

That's actually not all Greek to me: at least teh [sic] is Latin.

After a quick update on linguistics, ethics, politics, tactics and 
physics, it still sounds (<- acoustics!) to me like that - based also
on certain made-up statistics - it would take some rather advanced
pharmaceutics (not affordable considering economics) to fully convince
me of "arithmetic" following a pattern rather than being one of a few
exceptions.

As http://www.dictionary.com/browse/-ics points it out, the reason
for arithmetic and logic not following the common pattern should be
rather attributed to "hysterical raisins" than anything else.