In standard North American English, does the word "smile" have one syllable or two? Â I believe it has two: Smy-El. Â Am I wrong?
Â
Thanks! Â
Hi Boris, and welcome to the forum!
All the dictionaries I have show smile as a one-syllable word. But I see your quandary. There are many words in English that are "borderline" in that respect. Smile is one of many. In some regional dialects, it probably does get pronounced as a two-syllable word. But you'll never see it hyphenated as "smi-le" unless you force that line-break.
It is officially one syllable, but I pronounce it, along with mile, file, pile, etc., as a rhyme to trial, which officially has two syllables. I'm sure there are many dialects that pronounce each of these and trial as one syllable.
It is not uncommon for the official syllabification and the actual pronunciation to be significantly different: Wednesday; interesting; athlete; laboratory.
The only states with uncontested five-syllable names are North and South Carolina and Louisiana. Depending upon how you interpret the ending, California, West Virginia and Pennsylvania might also belong in this group.