Seasonal Spelling Slip-up

The word "poinsettia" is a spelling trap for the unwary, especially as most of us pronounce it "poinSETTA" (or in fact, in North America, "poinSEDDA"). But don't forget it has that -ia ending so common in plant names: dahlia, petunia, gardenia etc. 

Not to mention "fuchsia", where we don't pronounce the ending ee-ah either, though one irate correspondent to the dictionary berated me for giving the pronunciation as "FYOOSHA" instead of what she considered the "correct" pronunciation: FOOKseeah (FOOK rhyming with BOOK). I was sorely tempted to write back saying that I would never do anything that would lead some poor innocent to engage in a conversation at a garden centre starting with the statement, "I wanna FOOKSya"!
 
You might also be tempted to add a superfluous "t" to poinsettia: pointsettia, but the flower is named after J.R. Poinsett, the first US Minister to Mexico and an amateur botanist, who came across the flower while there in the 1830s. Poinsettias are pointless, you might say (I've never been a fan of them).

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