Strictly out of curiosity. It’s not an incredibly uncommon word, but it’s not one used in day to day life, either. I’ve always heard it pronounced /'koj t@s/ - that is, two syllables, first one like a kind of pond.
However, I used the word in front of my father at some point, and he corrected my pronunciation: turns out it’s properly pronounced /'ko It @s/ - three syllables: first one “co” as in “co-op”, second “it”, with the stress on the first. He admitted that he used to think it was pronounced as I did, but apparently he picked up the “right” pronunciation along the way.
I’d never heard that pronunciation, so I went to the dictionary - lo and behold, the only pronunciation it lists is my father’s three-syllable pronunciation. “Have I been making a fool of myself all this time?” I wondered. And I’ve since been listening. And I’ve only heard the word a few times, and only on TV (people around me don’t say it real often, I guess.) And the TV pronunces it just like me!
So I’m wondering how y’all pronounce it. I have no doubt that at some point, the three-syllable pronunciation was the norm. But it’s obviously not universal anymore. Should I regard my pronunciation as a mispronunciation, or do most people agree with me and the TV? Is the three-syllable pronunciation stuffy or old-fashioned? Or were the few cases I saw exceptions, people who picked it up from reading, like I did? Or does everyone pronounce it like me, in the sort of obvious way suggested by the spelling?
(Incidentally, I’d also be interested if anyone has any interesting stories of their own mispronunciations of words they learned in books rather than in conversation.)
I’ve always assumed it was pronounced the way you pronounce it, but now that you point out the possibility of other pronunciations, it seems possible (and considering the meaning, likely) that the word contains the ‘co-’ prefix, which never actually occurred to me before (which would probably make it pronounced the way your father does).
Most of my vocabulary is from the ridiculous amount of reading I use to do, so I know far more words than I can pronounce and “screw up” regularly.
I still to this day cannot pronounce **Aluminum ** unless I use the English pronunciation.
I mangle **Cinnamon ** on a regular basis. I was in speech classes from 1st to 3rd grade. I spoke with a very heavy Italian accent even though I only spoke a few words of Italian. When I was pre-school age I lived in a neighborhood of the Bronx where every house had a little Italian Grandmother with a heavy accent and they all thought I was cute and talked to me a lot. I picked up their accent by association. My Parents were both born and raised in NYC. When me moved to NJ, my older sisters had friends who wanted to know how they ended up with a little Italian kid in the family. They wondered if I was a relative from Italy.
I encountered the word victuals while reading an old novel. When I looked it up in the dictionary, I was surprised by the correct pronunciation, and wondered why it wasn’t just spelled “vittles”!
Especially given that books do use “vittles” - a perfect example of pronunciation spelling. I know “victuals” is supposed to be pronounced “vittles”, but it seems so wrong I can hardly bear to say it that way.
Similar to What Exit?, I learned a lot of words by reading them. So apparently “bosom” isn’t pronounced “bussum” nor “gaol” “goal.” (buzum and jail respectively.)
I’ve heard it both ways. I’ve said it both ways. (I’ve done it…well happily there are more ways of doing it that pronouncing it.)
It always seemed like a (Latin) euphamisim for a much better (good old straight foward Anglo Saxon) term. I think of it mostly as in the phrase “coitus interuptus” where I think I usually pronounce it with two syllables, but my dictionary says I’m wrong.