Difference between revisions 11639100 and 11639569 on enwiki

[[/old talk1]]

-----
#Are the pronunciations in italics and brackets to the right of each word the correct pronunciations, or the mis-pronunciations?  This isn't clear from the text.  Ideally, the article would state first the `correct' pronunciation, followed by a list of mis-pronunciations with indications as to their likely regions (because a lot of the words in the list seem, to me, to be mispronounced only in certain parts of the world, rather than by all Anglophones.  In fact, at the risk o(contracted; show full)

"Most dictionaries list both (1) and (2). (1) is historically the older pronunciation and reflects the first-syllable stress of the original Latin word. It is the only pronunciation given by K&K, and the first pronunciation given by LPD. (2) began as a form of taboo avoidance because (1) sounds like the nonexistant adjective "urinous", but the euphemism was hardly successful as (2) can be homophonous with your anus."
⏎
⏎
:You're right, "urinous" is a word. It isn't in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate 11th edn. (where I looked in the first place), but it is in Webster's Third New International. As for (2) originating as a way of avoiding the "urinous" sound of (1), I don't have a published source for it; just a personal communication from someone of the generation during which the change took place (about 50-60 years ago). He told me that back then, the word "anus" really wasn't particularly well known among the general population, so pronunciation (2) didn't sound "dirty" until the '60s and '70s, when "anus" became better known. --[[User:Angr|Angr]] 05:58, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)