OK, isn’t Condoleezza Rice a perfesser at Stanford or something?

Last night, during her speech at the Republican National Convention, Condie offered up the following pronunciations (say these out loud for full effect):

ally:  uh-LIE

allies:  uh-LIES

scourge:  scorge, rhymed with “gorge.”

And, this one killed me – ingenuity:  AHN-zhuh-noo-i-tee (she must be Franch er somethin’)

Others I’ve heard the last few days — all from educated folks:

inundated:  in-NUN-day-ted

debacle:  rhymed with “the hackle”

divisive:  second and third syllable rhymed with “missive.”   This one’s all over the place.  (Look it up.  It’s “di-VIE-sive” — like from “divide,” not “division.”)

experiment:  ex-PEER-i-ment (Twice in the same speech.  It wasn’t inadvertent.  But, that’s OK.  This guy, who is an “evangelical,” pronounced it “EE-vuhn-gel-i-cuhl” [root word must be “even”] and claimed the current administration wanted us to “bow our knees .  .  .”  [rhymes with “how” — that kind of “bow”].)

Sorry if this is harsh.  I just realized — these are probably regionalisms.

Heinous.

We all know what it means.  It’s an adjective meaning “hateful, odious, abominable, evil, awful, reprehensible,” etc.  Like, “a heinous crime.”

Yet, there are a shocking number of incorrect pronunciations out there.

Like:  High-EE–nous, HEE–nous, high–AY–nous (as in “My Cousin Vinny”), and HAY–nee–ous (cf., e.g., “LAIR–nix”).

I write today because this morning I heard a veteran CBS reporter/interview show host come up with a new one:  “HIGH–nous.”

There is only one way to pronounce this word.  I was gratified to find the dictionaries confirm it:  “HAY–nous.”  Kinda rhymes with “grayness.”

To pronounce it any other way is a grave offense.

There is a difference between “purposely” and “purposefully.

“Purposely” is “intentionally” or “on purpose,” or perhaps, “deliberately.”  It is the opposite of “accidentally,” “by accident,” or “by mistake.”  Most of the time, “purposely” is the word you want.  Like, “Betty purposely used the incorrect word,” or, “He purposely left the door unlatched.”

“Purposefully,” while used increasingly frequently, is seldom used correctly.  Indeed, most of the time speakers use “purposefully,” they mean “purposely.”

“Purposefully” means “with determination,” or “resolutely,” or, “with a (particular) purpose in mind.”  Like, “He walked into the room purposefully, with fire in his eyes.”

I suspect that this is just another case of some people thinking that using one word, here “purposefully,” will make them sound smarter than using another, here “purposely.”  It is unfortunate that, while trying to sound erudite, they just sound ignorant.

In a recent comment to this blog, a friend reminded me about the confusion regarding the pronunciation of “forte .”  Is it “fort,” as in “port”?  Or is it “for-TAY”?

Seems the online dictionaries prefer it to rhyme with “sort,” but offer “for-TAY” as an alternate pronunciation when “forte” is used to mean “one’s strong suit.”  Like, “While he’s a great writer, grammar is not his forte.”

And, it appears that Kia, the car company, pronounces it that way (“for-TAY”) in its commercials for the Kia Forte.  But, considering how car companies make up words to name their cars, I guess this isn’t much help.  They might as well make up pronunciations too.

It appears that this is another situation where the dictionaries are following trends in pronunciation – which is only slightly less troubling than following trends in meaning.

Since the first two pronunciations in the dictionaries online rhyme with sport, I’m going to go with that.

Of one thing though, we may be sure.  “Cache” is a one-syllable word.  The pronunciation of “cache” is “kash,” like in “bash.”  It’s not “ca-SHAY,” like in “sashay.”

A “cache” is a ”hiding place,” a “collection,” or a “stash,” as in “a cache of weapons.”  And, there’s only one way to pronounce it correctly – it rhymes with “splash,” no matter how so many commentators on CNN pronounce it as though it were “cachet.”  As we all know, “cachet” is a “quality,” “status” or “feeling of distinction.”  Like:  “That restaurant used to be cool, but it has lost its cachet.”