Early this morning, I was listening to a radio talk show.  There was a substitute host.  His experience is listed on Wiki:  He worked for several news organizations, including CNN, Fox and MSNBC.  He also graduated from a prominent Midwest university.

And, he pronounced “et cetera” as “EK cetera.”

ACK!

This makes me wonder what is stalling our evolution as a species.

To my online dictionary references I rushed.

Of my two “reliable” references, one did not offer “EK cetera” in its main definition area as a variant.  It simply said: “et set-er-uh, se-truh.”  Hooray!  Lower on the page, however, it stated, “although (the EK pronunciation) is occasionally used by educated speakers, (that pronunciation is) usually considered ‘nonstandard’.”  Boo!

Nonstandard?  Usually?  Under what circumstances?

The other reference listed the pronunciation as: “et-ˈse-tə-rə, -ˈse-trə also it-, ÷ek-, ÷ik-.“

That’s right, it listed the incorrect pronunciation next to the correct one, linking them with an “also.”  (It did have the “divided by” sign, which as we remember, means “considered by some” to be “questionable or unacceptable.”  “Considered by some,” “questionable” and (even) “unacceptable”  are what we know as “weasel words.”  A dictionary is not the place for weasel words.  [I’m going to ignore the “it cetera” and “ik cetera” suggestions.])

This is not a case, as it is with “joolery” or “realator,” of pronouncing the letters in the wrong order — an inexcusable offense, in any case.  Instead, this pronunciation puts a sound in the word that doesn’t exist anywhere in the word (I can’t find a hard “c” or a “k”).  Moreover, you can’t attribute this problem to the speaker’s reliance on the abbreviation, “etc.,” because, even there, the “c” comes before the “t.”

Again, I have to ask, if there is to be a reference to the incorrect pronunciation, why doesn’t that reference include something like, “some people pronounce it “EK cetera.”  This is INCORRECT”?

How is it that any educated person (let alone anyone else) is still pronouncing it this way?