Dictionary Pronouncers

dic·tion·ar·y pro·noun·cer, n. one who reads a word in the dictionary, not bothering to look at the pronunciation, and says the word incorrectly in everyday conversation

I am one. I am a dictionary pronouncer. I am coming out as a dictionary pronouncer. And maybe once and a while I pronounce difficult words wrongly or say “i-MAG-es” instead of “IM-a-ges”.

But sometimes it gets out of hand.

Sometimes, simple words such as “touch”, “indicate”, and “orange” are improperly pronounced (“tooch”, “ind-eye-cate”, and “or-ahn-juh”). Sometimes, words like “facsimile” and “stoic” are mispronounced. This would be fine if it was a minor mispronunciation, but oh, no. Facsimile become “face-smile”. Stoic becomes “steak” with a New York accent.

What can we do? Sometimes I feel obligated to remind those that pronounce “heinous” as “hee-nee-us” (oh, wait, that’s me…) to shut their mouth and go listen to the verbal definition section of Dictionary.com. If you are a dictionary pronouncer I advise you to do just that, or else you will live a life of ridicule and depravity because one day you will be at an important company tradeshow and you will mispronounce the name of your corporation while talking to someone because it’s something stupid like Ecclesiologists Unification Coalition and then you will get fired because you were actually speaking to the Master Ecclesiologist and then you will live on the streets. So go to dictionary.com and learn how to speak.