Talk:tumescence

can some doctor give the correct pronounciation for this word - "tumescence"
 * Why a doctor? I don't think they get training in IPA. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:38, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Interesting contradiction
Our etymology says '1725, from French tumescence', while the French dictionary TLFI says 'first attested 1834' (link). Of course, they can't both be right. Renard Migrant (talk) 21:44, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

possible attestation to the form in rashi
In Talmud Babli, Ms. Sanhedrin, chapter 6, f. 46a Rashi annotate on the following passage:

"GEMARA: The mishna teaches that a man is stoned naked but a woman is not stoned naked. With regard to this matter the Sages taught a related baraita: They cover a man’s genitals with one part in the front, and a woman is covered with two parts, both in the front and in the back, because all of that area is nakedness, which may not be viewed. This is the statement of Rabbi Yehuda. But the Rabbis say: A man is stoned naked, but a woman is not stoned naked."

the following remark:

"גמ' פרק אחד - כלומר מעט ממנו מלפניו ויש אומרים פרק חתיכת בגד ולשון פרק בתרוייהו לישני טורנצי"ן"

his annotation translated as follows:

"one part - meaning a little of it in his front and some say part  as a piece of cloth and the meaning of part as it said 'turm[s/c]in' "

where he seeks to clearify what one part means whereby the last part is translation to french which he write as "טורנצי"ן"

the starting "טו" could be constructed as "tou"  or "to" or "tu";

the sound of r is rather droppable, i believe more likely near nasal;

nasal pronunciation[m/n] is fairly convertible even in manuscripts;

צ haven't looked into his usage but generally "צ" can be constructed in latin form as either "s" as in "snake", "sc" as in scence" more directly. i believe it can be also be argued to be vocalized as sh in some cases as "s" can contain this kind of phonetics

another possibility for origin is to look at earlier anatomic and medical literature such as Galenus or the famous anatomic encyclopedia from the 16th century which also draw from earlier resources. to more direct line up