How do you pronounce the word potable, which means drinkable? A woman in the Navy stationed in Norfolk, Virginia, says most of her fellow sailors pronounce it with a short o, but she pronounces it with a long o. The word derives from Latin potare, meaning to drink, and traditionally the long o sound in the Latin has been preserved in the pronunciation of potable so it sounds something like /POE-tuh-bull/. Increasingly, though, many people pronounce it with a short o, something like /PAH-tuh-bull/, as if assuming that the adjective describes something that might be put in a pot and boiled. This pronunciation is especially common in the military. Potable is a linguistic relative of the word potion, a type of drink, and symposium, from Greek words that literally mean drinking together. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Potable Pronunciation”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Kitty from Norfolk, Virginia.
Hi, Kitty. Welcome to the show.
Hello, Kitty.
What’s up?
Hi. I have a question about the word potable /POE-duh-bul/. I’m active duty Navy, and I have noticed over a few years that it consistently gets mispronounced in the fleet. And while I try to correct people, I find that I get quite a bit of a backlash, and they actually do think that it is pronounced potable /PAH-duh-bul/.
And so, Kitty, where did you learn it as /POE-duh-bul/?
Well, I took Latin for a few years in high school, so I know that it comes from the word, and I’m probably gonna mispronounce this, but it comes from the word potare, potare maybe.
Potare, mm-hmm.
That means to imbibe, or that’s what I was taught that it meant.
So, you know, it makes sense, /POE-duh-bul/ water, drinking water.
Yeah, it comes from the Latin potare, which means to drink.
And it’s a linguistic relative of words like potion and also symposium, which literally is a drinking together, which is kind of cool.
Oh, I didn’t know that one.
Yeah, and so you have a long O in all of those words.
And even the Merriam-Webster dictionary, which I think of as pretty permissive when it comes to pronunciations, lists only one pronunciation and it’s the one you’re using, Kitty.
/POE-duh-bul/.
Okay.
/POE-duh-bul/.
/POE-duh-bul/, meaning you can drink it.
Right, right.
You can drink it.
Yeah.
Fit to drink.
The problem, of course, is I’m wondering, number one, are the people you’re correcting below you in rank or above you in rank?
No, it’s sort of just a co-worker situation, and it’s not really according to rank. I mean, if someone’s mispronouncing something, we would want to, you know, correct that.
I see.
Personally, I had a little bit of an issue with my CO coming over the 1MC, saying, you know, “Oh, we need to secure the /PAH-duh-bul/ water,” when then it just becomes rampant.
So that was a little frustrating.
Yeah.The problem is that you’re in a situation where a whole lot of people say /PAH-duh-bul/.
Yeah.
Right?
Yep.
Yeah.
Those pronunciations are sort of existing side by side. And I think perhaps the fact that you’re in the military may have something to do with it as well.
I’ve seen tons of people commenting that potable is far more common in the military than elsewhere.And there’s a culture of not correcting anybody who’s above you in rank if it’s something simple like mispronunciation, right?
Right.
You just would let that go, usually.
Yeah.
So it’s sort of a “when in Rome” thing.
But outside the military, and I’d say in general in English, /POE-duh-bul/ is far more common. Like vastly more common.
But /PAH-duh-bul/—
That’s heartening.
/PAH-duh-bul/ is on the rise, and again, it’s mostly from a misunderstanding of the origins of the word.
A lot of people actually don’t even know how to spell it.
You can find people spelling it with two Ts because they think that’s…
Oh, really?
I didn’t know that.
Yeah, so they don’t quite get the word.
The word is a little strange.
/PAH-duh-bul/ sounds like something you can put in a pot, right?
Okay, so they’re misanalyzing it.
Misanalyzing it.
Interesting.
Yeah, well, your Latin is serving you well, but I guess it’s causing problems, huh?
But again, the better pronunciation is /POE-duh-bul/, but many people do say /PAH-duh-bul/, and unless they ask you to be corrected, I would just let it go.
Yeah, I pretty much started to just try to mind my own business with that now.
Yeah, yeah, just make a mental note to think of Martha and Grant every time that happens.
Kitty, thank you so much for your call.
Really appreciate it.
Oh, absolutely.
It was a pleasure.
Thank you.
Great talking with you.
Bye-bye.
Thank you.
Bye.
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