pronunciation

pronunciation

1. Note that the correct spelling of this word is pronunciation, not pronounciation, and it is pronounced accordingly.

2. The British pronunciations given in this book follow the so-called ‘received standard’ based on the forms used by educated speakers in southern England, although it is recognized that other forms of pronunciation are equally valid. American pronunciations, when given, follow the pattern identified as ‘General American’, i. e. ‘the range of United States accents that have neither an eastern nor a southern colouring’ (J. C. Wells, Accents of English (1982) Vol. I, p.10).

3. For disputed or controversial aspects of pronunciation (many to do with the placing of the main stress), see the entries at apartheid, contribute, centrifugal, controversy, decade, despicable, distribute, forehead, formidable, harass, kilometer, municipal, privacy, subsidence. See also accent, noun and verb differences.

4. Significant systematic changes in pronunciation that have occurred in the last fifty years or so include (under AmE influence) the placing of the stress in adverbs ending in -arily on the -ar- instead of earlier in the word (as in necessarily, primarily, etc.), the simplification of the final syllable of nouns in -ein and -ies (e.g. protein, rabies, scabies) to a single sound (-een and -eez instead of -ee-in and -i-eez as formerly), a tendency to first-syllable stress in words such as research, dispute, and contribute, and a change from -ee-i-ti to -ay-i-ti in words of the type deity, homogeneity, spontaneity, etc.