Cumin, the earthy spice in many chili powders, has a dictionary pronunciation that surprises plenty of cooks: many dictionaries give a form that rhymes with comin’. Older spellings such as cummin help reinforce that, but everyday kitchen pronunciation has often moved elsewhere, usually to /KYOO-min/, perhaps because the spice feels foreign enough to invite a little extra verbal zing. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Many Dictionaries Say “Cumin” Rhymes with “Comin’””
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette. Grant, your family likes Mexican food, right?
And sometimes you like to cook together.
Yes, please.
Right? So let’s suppose that you’re making a big pot of chili.
Sure.
And you’ve decided that you need some more of that earthy brown powdered spice.
Yes.
And so you look to your wife and you say, honey, would you please hand me some?
Oh, no. You’re going to make me say it.
C-U-M-I-N.
Is that what you say?
C-U-M-I-N?
No, I say cumin.
Cumin.
But I think there’s a problem with that.
I’ve had a problem with that word all my life.
I think I’ve said it all different ways.
What do you say?
I say cumin.
So we’re talking about this spice.
Yeah.
It dominates like burritos and tacos and that sort of thing.
Yeah, delicious.
You do put it in chili.
Yeah.
I use Tex-Mex chili recipes.
Okay.
All right.
But yeah.
But the dictionaries have a different pronunciation.
I know.
They say cumin.
Who else says that?
Nobody but the dictionaries.
Well, I have seen it on cooking shows, but I’m pretty sure they looked it up too and then felt bad and thought, well, I need to look professional.
Let me say common because that’s what my dictionary says.
But I think this is one of those cases where the dictionaries have fallen behind.
I think they’re bringing up their ear.
By like 100 years or something, some incredible amount of time, they failed to keep up.
Now, we do find that the spelling used to reflect that pronunciation.
Sometimes people would spell it with a double M.
Right. C-U-M-M-I-N.
Yeah. These days people say cumin or cumin.
Right.
And most of the language authorities who’ve even looked at the word go like, wow, this is a thing.
You know, we’re doing a little avoidance here by saying cumin.
Maybe we were avoiding saying common because it just sounds awkward and weird in the kitchen.
It doesn’t actually sound like an ingredient at all.
Right.
It sounds like you’re yelling to somebody in another room.
Yeah. It’s part of the foreignizing. We think of this as a foreign spice.
Therefore, we give it that little extra zing, right?
Just to make it sound a little exceptional.
Exactly.
And we’re going to talk a little bit more about that in the show later on.
Give us a call if you say cumin or cumin or cumin or something else.
We want to hear about it and all your other linguistic weirdities.
877-929-9673 or email words@waywordradio.org.
