A cautionary tale for those who are cavalier about pronunciation: In 2003, the then president of the United States made his first presidential visit to Nevada and repeatedly pronounced it \u201cnuh-VAHD-a.\u201d Residents of the state got testy\u2014it\u2019s nuh-VAD-a, and they felt that the commander in chief should know it. The next time he spoke there, he made sure to say \u201cnuh-VAD-a,\u201d adding archly, \u201cYou didn\u2019t think I\u2019d get it right, did you?\u201d<\/p>\n
Here are some other pronunciations to ponder:<\/p>\n
Vase<\/strong>\u00a0 The Brits say \u201cvahz,\u201d but we don\u2019t. It rhymes with face<\/em> or phase <\/em>in American speech.<\/p>\n Decadent <\/strong>\u00a0 Given the state of things, this is a word you hear a lot, but not its traditional pronunciation: dik-CAY-dint (first two syllables pronounced like\u00a0decay<\/em>), rather than DECK-a-dint. We have to admit that this one is all but a lost cause, although if you think about it, it makes sense to stress the decay<\/em> in\u00a0decadent<\/em>.<\/p>\n Cadre<\/strong>\u00a0 We recommend CAD-ree. Yes, we know cadre\u00a0<\/em>is now commonly pronounced KAH-dray, but it wasn\u2019t always so. In the 1960s the preferred pronunciation was KAH-der, with CAD-ree as an alternative. KAH-dray was not an option.<\/p>\n Culinary<\/strong>\u00a0 You can\u2019t go wrong with KYOO-lin-ary, although these days you are more likely to hear CULL-in-ary, or even COO-lin-ary. In 1956, Webster\u2019s New World<\/em> listed only KYOO-lin-ary. In 1966, The<\/em> Random House<\/em> Dictionary of the English Language <\/em>preferred KYOO-lin-ary but made CULL-in-ary a second option. Regrettably, the online American Heritage dictionary now leads with CULL-in-ary, but it lists KYOO-lin-ary second.<\/p>\n Acumen<\/strong>\u00a0 This word for \u201ckeen insight\u201d is usually pronounced \u201cACK-ya-min,\u201d but many sticklers object. The 1956 Webster\u2019s allowed only uh-KYEW-min (rhymes with luck human<\/em>), but ten years later<\/span><\/span>, Random House listed ACK-ya-min as a second choice. The Oxford online dictionary accepts ACK-ya-min but still prefers uh-KYEW-min. So do we.<\/p>\n Schizophrenia<\/strong>\u00a0 We prefer skit-sa-FREE-nia, and so do we (joke). Nowadays there is general agreement on the first two syllables: skit-sa. But are the next two syllables pronounced \u201cFREE-nia\u201d or \u201cFREN-ia\u201d? The 2014 Webster\u2019s New World<\/em> and the online American Heritage accept both. But going back a few decades, the 1968 Random House American College Dictionary\u00a0<\/em>accepts only FREE-nia. And get this: it prefers skiz-a-FREE-nia, the \u201cskiz\u201d rhyming with whiz<\/em>. It lists skit-sa-FREE-nia second. No FREN-ia in sight.<\/p>\n Halley\u2019s Comet<\/strong>\u00a0 Make it HAL-lee\u2019s. The two l<\/em>\u2019s make\u00a0Halley<\/em> an exact rhyme with valley<\/em>. The last name of the astronomer Edmund Halley (1656-1742) is often mispronounced HAY-lee. That would be understandable if it were \u201cHaley\u2019s Comet,\u201d a frequent misspelling. Some say HAH-lee\u2019s or HAW-lee\u2019s, both of which are more acceptable than HAY-lee\u2019s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A cautionary tale for those who are cavalier about pronunciation: In 2003, the then president of the United States made his first presidential visit to Nevada and repeatedly pronounced it \u201cnuh-VAHD-a.\u201d Residents of the state got testy\u2014it\u2019s nuh-VAD-a, and they felt that the commander in chief should know it. The next time he spoke there, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pronunciation"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2187"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2187\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}