File this under, "I can't believe they said it on NPR!" I was listening to All Things Considered and heard a story about greenhouse gases. The journalist submitting the story kept pronouncing the chemical CO2 as carbon dee-oxide. It made me shutter. The word is pronounced just as it is written, carbon dioxide. Di- the prefix for 2 is pronounced with a long I, not a long E as this person did. And sadly, this isn't the first time I've heard this mispronunciation. But on NPR?! Ugh! My question: Is this another Britishism making its way into our American English? Or is it just plain wrong?
I can't find that pronunciation in any American dictionaries or British ones for that matter, so I don't think it's another Britishism. I have a feeling it's just a regional pronunciation. It sounds like it could be a mid-western or southern dialect. Or maybe the journalist thought it would just be a good attention grabber.
I've heard it all my life, not as commonly as "dye-oxide" but enough that I think of it as a variation and not a mistake. Â "Dee-" would be the correct pronunciation in almost any language but English; maybe it bled over from elsewhere, Russian or French or something.
...Like "SAUNT-ometer" and "dilitation" in the arena of childbirth.
dan,
Your "shutter" makes me shudder. 
Emmett
Ok, my son sent this one to me a day or two ago:
