Elephino…
Yeah, that. I’m confused. I have however pronounced all three of those words (due to a kid with a massive dinosaur fixation) and I’m not feeling any disconsonance.
This is one of my personal crusades. I insist that it should be pronounced Kee-hoh-tic, not Kwix-oh-tic. The “correct” pronunciation only makes sense if you follow the British fashion of pronouncing names as they would be if they followed the usual english-language pronunciation rules. In the US, which has Spanish place names all over the place (like La Jolla – pronounced “La Hoya”-- this makes no sense.
I similarly refuse to pronounced “primer”, meaning a beginning reader’s book, as if it were spelled “primmer”. Not only do we pronounce “primer” with a long “I” when we’re taking about a painting pre-coat, but the term clearly is associated with “prime”, being a first book. And our usual pronunciation rules would imply a long “I”.
So I will willfully mispronounce “Quixotic” and “Primer” and other words that appear incorrect in an effort to change the norms. It’s gotta start somewhere.
Kind of meta, right?
Quixotic, actually.
I prefer Tig Watty, the other sounds like a Klingon name.
“MEE ta”?
Another word – impious
I have to admit that I’ve never heard this one used in the way disapprove of. I was surprised to read that the accepted American pronunciation is IM-pee-us, which seems calculated to confuse the unfamiliar about the meaning and root of the word. In this case, I agree with the British pronunciation: im-PIE-us, dammit.
I still struggle with “epitome”, which I pronounce like a book: EPPY tome. If they wanted “e PIT o mee” they could have spelt it “epitomy”.
(I am serious. It’s a stupid spelling.)
How about Synecdoche?
Wait, what? I have never heard anybody pronounce it that way. Does anybody actually say it that way?
Huh?
impious: IM-pee-us
pious: PEE-us
piety: PEE-it-ty
They match perfectly. Of course, I also say EE-ther, not EYE-ther.
There is no Spanish word “quixotic”, it’s a word coined by English speakers.
♫
Toe bone synecdoche foot bone
Foot bone synecdoche heel bone
Heel bone synecdoche ankle bone
Ankle bone synecdoche leg bone
Leg bone synecdoche knee bone
Knee bone synecdoche thigh bone
…
♫
If I heard someone say that out loud, I think I’d think they were discussing someone acting in the manner of an imp, but who didn’t want to say “real imp-like”, like some old timey western guy.
bough dough
What in the what?
Click to hear the pronunciation. Pi-ous, as in “Pi is 3.1415…”
I actually am not sure how to pronounce that!
For years I thought it was “Sigh-ny doch”. If someone would be so kind…
Yeah, that’s the way I learned it, and that’s how I say it. But then, I also learned “primmer” and “quix-otic”.
Patterns in English are not rules. They’re barely even suggestions.
If you consider English as compared with, say, Latin or Greek, it’s sort of amazing that it works at all. A hodgepodge mix of a bit of vestigial inflections, positional information and mangled loanwords.
Any computer language standards committee would reject it immediately. 