Ha! Now those linguists and etymologists at the National Hurricane Center are backtracking! To wit:
REGARDING THE PRONUNCIATION OF BERYL...A REVIEW OF SEVERAL DICTIONARIES SHOWS THAT BOTH BER'-IL AND BURL ARE ACCEPTED PRONUNCIATIONS...AND IN FACT THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DIRECTIVE SPECIFIES THE FORMER...TWO SYLLABLE...PRONUNCIATION. THE ONLY BERYL I PERSONALLY KNOW ALSO PRONOUNCES IT BER'-IL. WE APOLOGIZE FOR ANY CONFUSION.
This is James Franklin writing; forecaster Stacy Stewart is the one who told us it was pronounced like "Berle." I wonder if the forecasters are as divided over the track that Beryl will take as they are over pronunciation....
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I think they should include the name "TOMATO" next year. We can all hope for at least 20 storms, then sit back and enjoy the lack of consensus...
Like shooting fish in a Beryl........
Mineralogists and geologists are also familiar with the word beryl. A beryl is a crystal of beryllium aluminosilicate, a semi-precious stone. Ruby, emerald, aquamarine are all forms of beryl with various impurities. Every geologist that I've ever known pronounces the word with two syllables, e.g. ber-yl (like barrel). "Burl" would have been considered incorrect by my mineralogy professor.
I don't know about anyone else, but I can berylly contain my excitement at learning all this.
In fact, I wrote a little something to express my joy:
Beryll and Burl went up the hurl to fetch a pail of water,
Beryll fell down, and Burl done drowned,
And Beryll nearly died of laughter.
Fred ain't the only poet hilariat.
Ruby is not in the Beryl family. Red Beryl is called bixbite and is the rarest Beryl as it is only found in one location in the world: at the Violet Claims in the Wah Wah mountains of Utah. Ruby is in the Corundum family along with Sapphire