All my life I’ve heard ‘divisive’ pronounced ‘di-vice-ive’ (də-ˈvī-siv). I looked at Miriam Webster online and that’s the first pronunciation. But every time I’ve heard it recently (on NPR and CNN) it’s pronounced ‘di-vis-ive’.
Is the latter pronunciation the new standard? It kind of grates.
I get into arguments with people all the time about the proper pronunciation of that word.
It’s a divisive argument. (I pronounce it the latter.)
I know it drives certain types up the wall, but in American English, sometimes you just have to accept that sometimes a couple ways are both equally right.
Can I as a tangentially related question? How do these “new standards” amongst media folk arise? It seems that almost at once they all begin to (mis)pronounce words like Iraq and Junta the same way, after saying them like everyone else for a long time…
an earlier thread about this:
It’s e-rock. So what is it nowadays? ‘hoonta’, or ‘junta’? I hear it both ways.
Someone once said to me, “It’s di-VICE-ive, not di-VISS-ive. You di-VIDE things. You don’t di-VIDD them.”
Which made sense to me until I just now thought of “deride” and “derisive.”
What? I pronounce the middle vowel in “deride” and “derisive” exactly the same (rhymes with “I”). But then I did pronounce “misled” as “myz-eld” until someone pointed it out to me :).
Hmmm. Guess I’ve been pronouncing it wrong all these years. The short “i” sound is listed as the 3rd pronunciation in my Websters.
Which means you have been right, just in a minority. Again, dudes just have to get used to the fact that sometimes there is no one true way.