CILIP, Chillip or Killip and why it's important.

I spent a lot of time at Online chatting to people, the way that you do, and all of a sudden I started to notice something rather interesting. Now, I've always pronounced the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals as 'Sill-ip' partly because it seems to me to be obvious, and partly because the people employed by the organisation also pronounce it that way as well.

However, I noticed that some refer to it as Chill-ip or even Kill-ip. Doesn't particularly bother me, because I knew instantly what organisation they were referring to. But then I got to thinking - why is this happening? And I think the reason for it is that people don't actually talk about it very much. Now, I admit here that that's only a theory thought out in 5 minutes. I know that I could say to people 'Actually, it's pronounced Sill-ip' but that may come across as being rude, or make someone feel like a bit of a twit, or worse, make me look like I'm trying to be a smartarse! So I'm as responsible as anyone else for this, and maybe we're all going around trying to be too polite.

But... and this is the nagging point in my mind that I keep coming back to - what if that isn't the case? What if it really is that people just don't hear enough people pronouncing it as Sill-ip? Or more importantly, don't hear it being pronounced at all? That's the really worrying issue to my mind. Because if people arn't talking about it, why not?  It comes to a pretty pass if people don't know how to pronounce our national, professional body though!

Maybe I'm trying to look too deeply into something that's not very important though, and maybe it's all a storm in a teak-up?

Comments

[R Skinner]

You don't need to post this

But in Wales CILIP is pronounced with a hard 'C' because that's the correct Welsh pronunciation

so it's Silip in England

& Kilip in Wales

& that seems to be pretty standard throughout Welsh libraries

[Marina]

Oh Phil! As you already realise, this type of 'mispronounciation' could be down to many things.... including ignorance OR arrogance.... too many things to mention in a blog reply anyway.
However..... i work in a medical library and it never ceases to surprise me when the 'great', the 'good' and the 'should know better' ask for the 'Anals of Internal Medicine' instead of the Annals of Internal Medicine....
At least now after 5 yrs of it, i've stopped laughing out loud, and simply make sure i include 'annals' in my reply or at some point later....

Just keep saying CILIP (silip) and hope you don't get punched in the nose for insolence ;)

[Sam]

I'm a non-Welsh speaker so not by any means an expert but I don't believe there is a soft "C" in Welsh so that's why we tend to call it "Killip" here, as in "Killip Cymru". Perhaps someone more qualified can confirm or deny this???