I can’t get over it. I’m watching it on Hulu - only on Season 3 so no spoilers please. It’s a medical show. They have to say all manner of tricky multisyllabic scientificky words. And the doctors can’t freaking pronounce anesthesia? They say anastesia. No “th.” I think I’ve heard one or two people say it correctly. It is driving me crazy. OK it’s not really, but it is annoying. I mean, isn’t that odd? How do you say it?
I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone pronounce the “th” before, unless there’s some nuance I’m missing. In your opinion, is this guy or the first person here pronouncing the th? I don’t hear any “h” there, either.
I can’t speak for the OP, but, yes, they are both pronouncing the TH, making it sound like the TH in thin.
Uh…yes, they are both saying it. You really don’t hear a “th” sound? On the show they say An-as-steesia. In your examples and in the whole rest of the English-speaking world we say an-as-theesia.
I wonder if they are still saying it that way in Season 7. I wonder if they would listen if I wrote them a letter. 
Being from the rest of the English speaking world, I’ve only ever heard ana-stesia, ana-stetic, anae-stetist.
I’m from part of the rest of the English-speaking world and I generally only hear the “th” version. I have a friend who’s an anaesthetist and she certainly pronounces it with a th.
Yup.
They’re talking about medically-induced unconsciousness, not a Russian Princess who might or might not still be alive.
I hear it both ways in hospitals.
It comes out “an-uh-STEE-zhuh” for me. It doesn’t sound like the Russian princess’ name, though, it’s a much lighter “t”, and it’s a long e vowel, whereas the Russian princess, I pronounce “an-uh-STAY-zha”.
For “anesthetic,” there’s no “th” or “t” sound. “an-uh-SET-ic”. I think. This is one I’m having trouble saying without thinking about it, and both ways feel equally natural.
“Anesthetist”, however, has a strong “t”, and the stress on the second syllable, instead of the third: “uh-NES-tuh-tist”.
Dunno if it’s my dialect (Chicago) or a habit I’ve picked up from others.
I just quizzed my SO, a paramedic who grew up in Wisconsin. So as not to influence him, I didn’t use the words myself or tell him why I was asking. (I said, “what do you call the medication they use to make you unconscious for surgery? Who gives it?”) And he uses the same versions I do.
An-as-THEE- zhuh
An-as-THET-ic
An-EETH-eh-tist
Big “TH” in there.
I think this is what happens when we all try to speak Greek with various accents.
For what it’s worth, I have always just used a “T” sound, and I always hear it that way. Either I’m from a linguistic background that uses a hard “T” or there is something in my perception which fashions it that way, probably leading to my own pronunciation.
. . . yeah, I see on Merriam-Webster’s site they have a “th” in the guide, but the recordings still sound like “t” to me.
I say:
an-es-THEE-zhia
an-es-THET-ic
I work in a hospital and I don’t know I’ve ever heard them said any other way. Also, my cousin is an an-es-THEE-zee-ologist and she’s right here and agrees.
That last one is weird. You’re leaving out the S entirely?
I say the first two the way you do, but the last one is An-ESS-theh-tist. I say anesthesiologist (along with the other words he mentioned) the same way Nunavut Boy does
Yup
An-EETH-eh-tist, maybe an-EETH-seh-tist with very soft “s”.
Irish accents soften things up a lot.
They do. But the odd thing is that this “th” to light “t” switch that you don’t do for these words sounds to my ear like the same switch that (some?) Irish accents do to “three-thirty”, making it sound to me like “tree tirty”. I’m surprised the same switch isn’t done for these words!
All are wrong.
I don’t recall ever hearing the th-less version around these parts. What bugs me in the hospital where I work is hearing requests over the P.A. system for “Res-pi-tory services”.
It’s “RES-PIR-A-TORY services”, you lazy dim-bulbs. TWO "r"s.
We’re far outnumbered by the dimbulbs. My wife’s an RT. When we first met she was astonished by the fact that she was dating a guy who knows how to spell ‘respiratory.’
ETA: I’m watching season 7 of GA right now. I’ll pay particular attention to how they pronounce the word(s) in question and report back.
Pronunciations both clearly with and clearly without th are common (though regionalized), and as seen here, there’s a middle territory in which the hearer’s ear can interpret either way. I see no reason to not accept all variants mentioned as equally correct.
I am pleasantly surprised to come back and see that more people weighed in. Appears to heavily lean toward the TH. One thing that actually makes me feel better is that there are people on the Dope who say or hear it without the “th” because that makes me think that the people one the show are not quite as idiotic as I thought. Still, looks like they’re wrong.
If everyone’s saying it, it’s clearly a dialectical variation that either they all shared by happenstance or was imposed by one person who was confident in their pronunciation and the others just followed along, but it’s not ‘wrong’.