Sumac and Questionable Linguistics
Around these here parts, the prevalent pronunciation for sumac is shoo’-mak. We’ve also encountered that pronunciation among some Midwesterners. A few dictionaries list shoo’-mak as an secondary pronunciation and soo’-mak as the primary, but it is curious that the sh supplanted the s locally. The Amish around here also “shoo”, so I wondered if this was a German …