How do you pronounce the words successful, acceleration, and eccentric?
Also, where did you grow up (i.e. in what region did you acquire your speech patterns)?
The reason I ask is that two guys I work with pronounce them consistently in a way that seems nonstandard and weird to me, and I recently realized that both are from the same state. Since I’ve lived all over and rarely/never heard these words pronounced their way, I am wondering if this is a speech pattern particular to their state.
After I get a few replies I’ll reveal how they pronounce them and where they’re from.
I should add that I was born in Australia, lived from age 2 to age 9 in Leeds, England, then from age 9 until my accent was well-fixed in New South Wales. I have never, however, spoken with a broad West Yorkshire accent, even though I was surrounded by it as a young child.
Grew up in the D.C. area, live in Kansas City, don’t recall ever hearing them pronounced differently (other than situation-specific affectations like ACK-sell-er-ay-shun to avoid confusion with deceleration).
OK, everyone who’s answered so far pronounces the “cc” the same way I do. Suck-sess-ful, ack-sell-eration, ex-centric.
The two guys at work pronounce these words “suh-sess-ful”, “a-selleration” and “essentric” (not sure about that last one but the first two are definite.)
They are both from…drumroll…Michigan. In fact, both are U of Michigan grads. I am from Ohio but have lived in coastal California and the southeast.
It’s peculiar, to be sure, but I don’t think I would wince or correct them. By the way, I don’t think it’s common among Michiganders. It’s odd that Hyperelastic has two people with that quirk in the same office.
yup. I definitely accent the first syllable in ‘successful’ and it’s more like ‘sick’ than ‘suk’
As for ‘eccentric’ I accent the 2nd and 3rd syllables almost equally, but there’s a little more emphasis on the last. It’s not ec-cen-TRIC but more like: ec-CEN_TRIC
I actually agonized over this before replying. Really, the way I pronounce it is less like “suck” or “sick” and more like “ssk” or “s’k.” There’s hardly any vowel sound there at all.
“suh-sess-ful” sounds right to me, but the other two are off. There definitely isn’t a “k” sound in the way most people I know pronounce the first part of successful. But you know New England…there aren’t many words we can’t stick an “h” sound in
Okie checking in. I usually hear these with the ‘ks’ pronunciation, but I have known a very few people to use the ‘ss’ style. Drives me nuts, it does. Those people also tend to say things like “pacifically” rather than “specifically”.
