Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Potayto or Potarto?

Erik Sheppard has raised an issue that I've thought about on and off - here

Is it 'voiceover', 'voice over' or voice-over?

Personally, I have always gone with 'voiceover'. I never really looked at which made the most sense grammatically, just which looked better.

It's interesting, because as a flute player, there is a similar debate with the name of that profession. There is flautist - pronounced either 'flawt-ist' or 'flout-ist', or flutist. James Galway raised a valid point that he does not play the flawt or the flout, but the flute. I like to avoid any conflict whatsoever, by just saying I'm a flute player.

What do you think? If you don't care about voiceovers or flutes, do you have a similar situation with your vocation?