Divisive Pronunciation

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

There’s a particular adjective that divides people when it comes to how they pronounce it, and it is spelled D-I-V-I-S-I-V-E.

So there’s more than one pronunciation of the word?

Yes.

Okay, and what do you say?

I say divisive.

Divisive?

Mm. And so does Hillary Clinton. So does Jeb Bush. But Jeb Bush’s father says divisive.

Divisive.

Divisive. And also in the divisive camp are Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders. I’ve checked them all out. They all say divisive.

Is there an age? There’s no age barrier there, right? Or age gap?

No, there’s not really an age gap there.

And what’s interesting is that divisive as a pronunciation wasn’t even mentioned in dictionaries until 1961.

Oh, that’s really interesting.

But I wonder how much longer before that it existed.

I mean, Shirley wasn’t brand new then.

And it’s interesting for what it’s worth to look at the American Heritage’s usage panel.

Because in 2013, divisive was the preferred pronunciation of 88% of their usage panel,

Which is made up of people of letters.

And back in 2001, the short I, rhyming with permissive,

Was acceptable to only 16% of the panel,

But by 2013 it was deemed acceptable by 65% of the panel.

So it’s really interesting to me that it’s a pronunciation

That seems to be changing under our feet

And also following the usual patterns that we talk about in language.

You know, if somebody influential starts using a word,

Then it catches on.

Yeah.

And here we see the division that already existed between division, right, and divide, right?

Exactly.

And so is the speaker going to inherit the vowel sound from one word or the other?

It’s one of these things that’s going to be interesting to watch.

Another one like that is dissect.

I had a biology teacher in junior high who got all over us because she was saying,

Look, it’s got two S’s in it.

It’s pronounced dissect.

But that one has definitely flipped.

Right.

So it’s dissect.

You dissect a frog instead of dissect a frog.

Interesting.

I love these.

I do love these.

And some of this comes up again and again and again with no real permanent movement one way or the other, right?

Sometimes a word doesn’t completely switch.

The other pronunciation lingers and never completely goes away.

Yeah, and I’m wondering if some people say both of them at different times and don’t really notice it.

If you don’t catch yourself.

Yeah.

Maybe you’ve said it one way when you were a kid, but then you learned better in school,

But somehow the kid pronunciation still comes out sometimes.

Right, right.

I noticed that Cory Booker of New Jersey also says divisive.

Divisive.

Yeah, and I think some people thought originally when this was being discussed years ago,

People thought it was kind of prissy, like maybe a Northeast affectation or Ivy League affectation.

But I think it’s becoming more and more common.

Well, this is a show about all aspects of language.

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