How to Pronounce ‘Apoptosis’

Here’s a question from a listener:

“Hi, Grammar Girl. This is Suzanne from Pittsburg, and I want your opinion on how you pronounce the word “apoptosis.” I am giving a talk in a few weeks, and I'd always thought the P was silent, but when I looked it up, it seems like people on the internet say that you do pronounce the P, so what is your opinion. Thanks.”

Thanks for the question, Suzanne. First I’ll answer your specific question, and then I’ll talk about pronunciation tools in general.

‘Apoptosis’ pronunciation in 1972

“Apoptosis” is the scientific name for programmed cell death, as opposed to necrotic cell death, and the Oxford English Dictionary addresses the two different pronunciations in the Etymology section of the entry for “apoptosis”—not something I see too often. And it’s interesting because it shows that the pronunciation recommendations have changed over time. 

The pronunciation without the second P (“apo-tosis”) seems to be what people used in 1972 when biologists coined the word.

At that time, John Kerr, an Australian pathologist sometimes called “the father of apoptosis,” wrote in a footnote in an article in the "British Journal of Cancer" that Professor James Cormack of the Department of Greek at the University of Aberdeen suggested the name because it is used in Greek to describe petals falling from flowers or leaves falling from trees. Since it’s the “-tosis” part that means “to fall,” and that’s pronounced without the P even thought it’s spelled with a P (P-T-O-S-I-S), Kerr suggested that his discovery should be pronounced without the P, “apo-tosis.” 

“Pterodactyl” is another word you may be more familiar with that has the “pt” combination where the T isn’t pronounced. It’s spelled “P-T-E-R” at the beginning, but pronounced “tero-dactyl.”

‘Apoptosis’ pronunciation in the 1990s

So that was in 1972. But I remember during my time as a graduate student in biology in the ‘90s that people argued about how to pronounce it, and we usually pronounced the P—“apoptosis.”

Finally, the Oxford English Dictionary shows that in 1994, the esteemed journal “Nature" sided with the “apop-tosis” pronunciation, calling the silent P “neither correct nor attractive,” because if I’m reading this right, when the Greek “pt” combination appears in the middle of a word, the P...

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