Pronunciation

 

Only Two O’s in the Word!

 Please don’t think I’m picking on Southerners or uneducated people. I am not. I’m only trying to help all of us speak better.

Here’s a word frequently mispronounced by educated people. The way it is said grates on my nerves like fingernails on an old-fashioned chalkboard. I honestly don’t make a habit of correcting others except for my closest relatives, who know I love them and have to tolerate me, but I’ve had the audacity to correct a smart aleck who insists on mispronouncing pronunciation. He denied his mistake. If I’d recorded him, I could have proved the point.

The standard way to say the word is  pruh-nuhn-see-ey-shuhn, according to Dictionary.com.  To pronounce it pruh-nown-see-ey-shuhn is substandard.

Listen to the pronunciation of pronunciation. When you hear a confident, highly educated person say the word wrong, hide your smile and swallow your laugh.

As one who grew up in Mississippi, the daughter of parents who did not attend college, I have worked all my life to speak standard English. When someone corrects me, I say “thank you” and rush to the dictionary to discover what is correct. I’m grateful for any help I get. I do not know anyone who can pronounce all the words and speak in grammatically proper sentences all the time. I’ve learned to appreciate the humanity of others. At the same time, I strive to improve, just as I want you to.

On the other hand, the message is more important than the way it is delivered.