Ratio - How many syllables

How many syllables does the word ratio have? Is it two or three? It sounds like three, but Websters has it with two syllables.

Please move this to GQ.

Both. On M-W.com, it lists two pronounciations (2 and 3). I think the one with two syllables is the British pronounciation.

Does the way a word is prononuced change the number of syllables?

Three syllables. Rhymes with fellatio.

It can.

For instance, cave in English is one, where as in Latin (pron: KA-vey) it is two. I’m sure there are similar examples within English but I can’t think of one right now.

The American Heritage Dictionary says fellatio has four syllables. I for one wouldn’t want to miss that syllable it is my favorite.

http://www.bartleby.com/61/24/F0072400.html

My favorite syllable being the last.

I said it rhymed, I didn’t say it had the same number of syllables.

But if I would have read what you wrote correctly I couldn’t have told my stupid joke.

Back on topic. Is the number syllables a word has determined by how it is pronounced?

Depends. “Shit” is a three-syllable word in Texas. :smiley:

I’d say so, syllables are enunciated and so must be based on pronunciation - the word as it is heard.
Personally, I’d give ratio 3, ray-she-o although I have heard people pronounce it as ray-sho, so it’s 2 to them.

Different pronunciation of the same word doesn’t neccesarily give rise to different syllable counts, though. An American friend says hostile completely differently to me, but she and I both count 2 syllables in it.

In both cases, though, the number of syllables comes from the way the word is pronounced.