Christine in Denver, Colorado, is pondering the etiquette of correcting someone’s pronunciation. How do you approach knowing the actual pronunciation of a word, when it’s not the most common one? For example, Christine learned that the name of the Japanese clothing store Uniqlo is pronounced YOO-ni-kloh, but some people she knows call it yoo-NEEK-loh. Is it kinder to offer a gentle correction, or should you adopt what you know is the wrong pronunciation in order to be agreeable? This is part of a complete episode.
According to Gobsmacked: The British Invasion of American English (Bookshop|Amazon) by Ben Yagoda, the word smarmy, meaning “unctuous” or “ingratiating,” may come from a 19th-century magazine contest, in which readers sent in...
Mary Beth in Greenville, South Carolina, wonders: Why do we say four-oh-nine for the number 409 instead of four-zero-nine or four-aught-nine? What are the rules for saying either zero or oh or aught or ought to indicate that arithmetical symbol...
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