I remember when I just started high school, a teacher gave us a long discourse on harmones. Having been a relatively bright student, it wasn't too often that my teachers surprised or stumped me, but harmones had me completely foxed. The teacher kept saying things like, "Adolescent boys do not have a lot of control because of their harmones." I kept wondering if she meant that since adolescent boys' voices are usually cracking, they have a tenuous (at best) ability to harmonize in a choir.
The teacher finally put me out of my misery when she wrote the word on the board and it was spelled h-o-r-m-o-n-e-s. I was so relieved. Then I was convinced that harmones was just a different way to pronounce the word when it had a different meaning [such as lead (the substance) and to lead (someone up the garden path)], and that when hormones were harmful to humans, they were referred to as harmones (pun-ny, but not my brightest moment and that I freely admit).
But no, the teacher kept talking about testosterone and oestrogen and insisted on referring to them as harmones. It finally dawned on me that she meant hormones, that the word had no other meaning when pronounced harmones, and that my dear, befuddled teacher was actually a native Hinglish speaker.
What similarity is there, you might ask, between harm and hormones, and why do people persist in pronouncing them so similarly? The answer is that there is no good answer. Many people (including some Science teachers) say it that way, despite the fact that there is no logical reason for that to be the way the word is pronounced.
Depending on their mother tongue, some Hinglish speakers like to flatten vowel sounds, so an "oh" sound might become an "ah" sound in a word. So, perhaps some science student, who later went on to teach many generations of Hinglish speakers, was taught to say harmones by the sort of person who refers to forms as farms (the vowel shift will be explained in time).
If, like me, you are ever in a situation where people keep using the word harmones and you are trying to determine whether the root form of the word has anything to do with harmony or harm, save your breath! Just replace harmone with hormone and you will be all set.
The teacher finally put me out of my misery when she wrote the word on the board and it was spelled h-o-r-m-o-n-e-s. I was so relieved. Then I was convinced that harmones was just a different way to pronounce the word when it had a different meaning [such as lead (the substance) and to lead (someone up the garden path)], and that when hormones were harmful to humans, they were referred to as harmones (pun-ny, but not my brightest moment and that I freely admit).
But no, the teacher kept talking about testosterone and oestrogen and insisted on referring to them as harmones. It finally dawned on me that she meant hormones, that the word had no other meaning when pronounced harmones, and that my dear, befuddled teacher was actually a native Hinglish speaker.
What similarity is there, you might ask, between harm and hormones, and why do people persist in pronouncing them so similarly? The answer is that there is no good answer. Many people (including some Science teachers) say it that way, despite the fact that there is no logical reason for that to be the way the word is pronounced.
Depending on their mother tongue, some Hinglish speakers like to flatten vowel sounds, so an "oh" sound might become an "ah" sound in a word. So, perhaps some science student, who later went on to teach many generations of Hinglish speakers, was taught to say harmones by the sort of person who refers to forms as farms (the vowel shift will be explained in time).
If, like me, you are ever in a situation where people keep using the word harmones and you are trying to determine whether the root form of the word has anything to do with harmony or harm, save your breath! Just replace harmone with hormone and you will be all set.
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