My inner voice usually reads it as key-ah-tik – the few times that I have used it in conversation I pronounce it with the key-HOE-tik.
Oh, for sure!
I come from Berkeley in Gloucestershire, and we pronounce it as Barklee, Glostuh-sheer.
And my favorite plural-singular “dice”. Two or more are dice, one is a die.
Also, insisting on native pronunciations can lead to madness. I hear a lot of Americans go out of their way to pronounce “Copenhagen” not in the Danish way, but in the German way for some reason, apparently thinking that because it’s not the American pronunciation, it must be the native pronunciation. It amuses my Scandinavian friends greatly.
How do y’all pronounce pronunciation?
I can understand double pluralization to some degree - after all, English is a language that has two plural versions for the noun “fish”: “fish” (that word being both singular and plural) and “fishes.” In theory, “fish” plural refers to many fish of one variety, whereas “fishes” refers to different types of fish. I’m not sure how many people even know that, but “feets,” for example, could make sense using that sort of logic - “feet” referring to one person, “feets” referencing the feet of multiple people…
‘You bastard’, usually.
It’s a shame Mexico’s biggest problem isn’t how American’s can say Mexico in Spanish. BTW, the “Me” in Mexico would be “meh”, not “may”. Same for in habanero (ah-bah-NEH-ro), etc.
But it once was “right.” So in an effort to be “correct” do we demand that everyone go back to that pronunciation?
Edit: Amercans can NOT say Mexico in Spanish.
“Irregardless” makes me CRAZY!
On the lighter side, it wasn’t until I was in my 40’s that I realized that “whodunit” was a detective story and not a “wad-unit,” whatever that is…
What really bothers me is when people pronounce it “there” instead of “their” or “they’re”.
I was firmly in the “Duct” camp, and had utter (and public) contempt for the “Duckers”; until someone pointed out that the tape originally evolved from duck cloth.
The word “mistake” is a mistake here. We talk about “standard” and “non-standard” spelling and pronunciations for a reason - because even the standard is an alteration of a previous form. It’s just the majority’s alteration. Hell, traditionally it wasn’t necessarily even held by the majority, but by those with the economic/social power. R.P. has been the “standard” for British English, despite something like only 2% of the British population actually using it. It’s very much tied up in issues of class and geographical areas that are (wealthy) power-centers. American standard English is similarly largely the creation of white, middle-class, Northern urbanites. Functionally those who don’t adhere to it are at a disadvantage, yes, absolutely, but part of that is because those who don’t adhere to the standard are those who the culture seeks to disempower to begin with.
The point is, though, that “dialectization” is occurring in all populations. An economically/educationally disadvantaged population is going to have a reduced vocabulary, and they’re also, because of the nature of “standardization,” going to be speaking non-standard language. The “dialectization” is a symptom, not a cause.
“There” and “their” are pronounced the same where I come from. “They’re” is different, though.
My own bias: When I hear nucular instead of nuclear I am embarrassed for the person saying it.
I heard a recent podcats, 99% invisible maybe? that made the claim that duck tape was originally duck brand, and was never used, and it quite poor for, duct work…
which is a much nicer condiment.
I went to the mat with a linguistics professor over the word fishes (varieties of fish). She simply did not want to acknowledge it’s existence.