I'm having a little disagreement on Reddit regarding the pronunciation of the word "Aquilla." The question originally posed was simply "How do you pronounce Aquilla?" to which I responded "AH-kwi-luh," only to be told by another user that I was "wrong" because, in their words, "No one should emphasize the first vowel while de-emphasizing the middle or last vowel. It's a serious abuse of language."
"Who says?" I asked.
"Linguists." they replied.
"Which linguists?" I asked.
"Look into lexical stress for English." they replied. (I hate it when someone makes a claim and then insists that you "do your own research" when pressed.)
I can think of dozens of three syllable words that start with a vowel or vowel sound that have the emphasis on the first syllable. Alcohol, acrobat, anyway, elephant... when I gave those examples they responded that none of those words are like aquilla. That doesn't make any sense to me.
One thing I've learned from my years of listening to A Way With Words, is that different pronunciations are typically just different, not wrong. I mean, just look at the word "Caribbean." I guess I'm just trying to figure out where this person is coming from, and why they think I'm wrong.
Thanks!