Me to. Which is actually kinda weird now that I think about it.
I pronounce it kil-AH-meter, but one of my heroes, the late great mister Carl Sagan, pronounces it KEE-lo-meter. It makes me feel a little guilty for some reason.
With my own accent, probably something closer to “K’lommt’ur.” :smack:
To feel that way is only yuman.
j-ust o-ver half a mi-le
kih-LOM-mih-ter
Funnily enough, for all the Canadians here saying how we pronounce it, we usually give distances in hours.
I pronounce it both ways depending on whom I am talking to.
Argh…I misclicked. No matter what my response indicates, I say “kill-AH-mi-ter”, not “KILL-uh-me-ter”. Most of the time, anyway.
That’s pretty common in Michigan, too. I only keep track of actual miles for expense report purposes.
I pronounce it MYE-uls.
Actually, it’s about halfway between kil-AH-mit-er and kil-LOW-mit-er. US, around Chicago. Canadian mom.
When Canada went metric (around 1974 IIRC), there was a big campaign to get people to stress the first syllable (supposedly in accordance with the ISO), but sometime during the past 36 years, they have given up. Actually, the way I say it, there is also a secondary stress on the -met-. All of which illustrates how English quite naturally falls into iambic feet and the stress has nothing to do with the phonemic structure of the word.
Another Brit here, me too.
Seeing as I live in the United States, where the word is not typically used, I pronounce however I feel it should be pronounced, and that changes from day to day. This is how I’m pronouncing it today:
Gambolputty de von Ausfern -schplenden -schlitter -crasscrenbon -fried -digger -dangle -dungle -burstein -von -knacker -thrasher -apple -banger -horowitz -ticolensic -grander -knotty -spelltinkle -grandlich -grumblemeyer -spelterwasser -kürstlich -himbleeisen -bahnwagen -gutenabend -bitte -eine -nürnburger -bratwustle -gerspurten -mit -zweimache -luber -hundsfut -gumberaber -shönendanker -kalbsfleisch -mittler -raucher von Hautkopft of Ulm.
All right, enough with the jokes. I say “ki-LOM-uh-ter” and I answered the poll accordingly (I think the poll says (kil-AH-me-ter) but it’s close enough.
Well, now I think about it. Oddly, when I say “its a kilometre away” I say “kill-AH-mi-ter”, but when I using it with a number, like “its 5 kilometres away” I say “kih-LOM-mih-tuh”.
Kellicam.
Actually, "kih-LOM-mih-ter " sounds about the closest to the way I say it.
This, but I’m in Aus.
In practice, though, most people here just refer to the measurement as ‘ks’.
OK fine… I think the main issue though is which syllable the emphasis is on. And possibly secondarily whether it ends in an R or a R+vowel
But of course that begs the issue of… people who don’t pronounce it with the emphasis on the second syllable presumably are trying to have some sort of bizarre pronunciation consistency principle because of how they pronounce other *-meters. But this seems flawed because
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Is there anybody in the world who says kilOmeters and also says centImeters or millImeters? Clearly the pronunciation for 2nd syllabers is not a consistency issue but rather an issue of proper ahem meter (rhythm).
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I don’t think anyone pronounces kilograms kilOgrams, thus adding further evidence that rules for rhythm in pronunciation are more important than consistency of emphasis amongst related family member of compound science terms.
And it also makes me wonder if the majority of these people are those who have never actually heard other human beings utter the word, and have divined a pronunciation based upon extrapolation alone?
*I feel that this poll has been in some small way inspired by the recent Punchbuggy vs Slugbug debacle.
Kay Am
Sort of this, (UK born and bred). More specifically, if the amount in question was 1.5 I’d say Kil-o-meter. If it were 25,000 I’d say Kil-LOM-it-er.
No…I’ve no idea why either.