Pronunciation follies

[ms_interpret]

The CBC needs to get people who know how to pronounce words properly. I had a good laugh today at the anchor who called the capital of Uruguay Montevideo [man tə ˈvɪ di jo] instead of the proper [man tə və ˈde jo] and, my favourite, vehemently [vi ˈhɛ mənt li]. For those of you who cannot read IPA (learn it!), I'll try my hand at fake phonetics.

Comments

[sunnydale47]

You're not supposed to drop the o. It's a three-syllable word.

The OED, Cambridge, American Heritage, and most other dictionaries give "BIV-oo-ack" as the first pronunciation, and that's the way I've always heard it (and pronounced it). Only Merriam Webster even uses a schwa for the second syllable.

Most of them list "BIV-wack" as the second pronounciation, but that's because prescriptivism is out and dictionaries nowadays are all descriptive. BIV-wack is just slurring, like poin-SETT-a instead of poin-SETT-ee-a and VAR-a-'gate-ed instead of VAR-ee-a-'gate-ed. I was brought up to pronounce words clearly, and I still do.

I haven't heard anyone say BIV-wack yet, but admittedly, it doesn't come up often, so who knows. Poinsettia is heard annually, though, and sadly, I only know one other person who still pronounces it properly with four syllables. I guess either the vestigial next-to-last letter will eventually end up being dropped, or poinsettia will become one of those words like thought that has odd extra letters in it for no apparent reason.

Interestingly, though, most dictionaries still give poin-SETT-ee-a as the only pronunciation. The proudly descriptivist MW gives poin-SETT-a as a secondary pronunciation. Cambridge, weirdly, gives point-SETT-ee-a first and then point-SETT-a -- but both are absolutely wrong: There is no t before the s! (Cambridge's definition, "a tropical plant with groups of bright red leaves which look like flowers," is incorrect as well -- those are bracts, not leaves. I just lost all respect for Cambridge.)