Pronouncing February

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Martha and Grant. This is Karen calling from San Diego, California.

Hi, Karen.

Hi, Karen.

Hi. Well, I had a question about the pronunciation of the month of February or February.

-huh. The second month of the year.

-huh. I’ve heard it pronounced both ways, and I don’t know why it started bothering me, but it did.

Which one started bothering you?

That most people do not pronounce the R.

Right.

And I’ve looked it up in the dictionary, and I think that even in Great Britain, they don’t pronounce the R sometimes.

And I was just wondering why that is and if it’s correct, if everybody’s saying it wrong, or if both pronunciations are acceptable.

You know, that’s not an uncommon problem when it comes to R sounds that are in different syllables of a word.

I mean, if you think about words like caterpillar, how many people say caterpillar or governor?

I mean, we say caterpillar and governor, but for some reason, sticklers have zeroed in on February.

You know, it’s this kind of shibboleth.

It kind of sticks in the craw of sticklers.

Yeah, it’s a great way actually to identify sticklers who are operating strictly from poor logic and not from a position of intellectual superiority.

You see why I love this guy?

So I’ve become a stickler, have I?

Martha’s right on track here, Karen.

She’s right on track.

The thing is, the lips have a hard time getting that R out after the B.

It’s hard to do and make that R distinct.

Even people who believe they are pronouncing the R, and the sticklers,

Even the ones who believe that they are pronouncing it correctly and pronouncing that R, usually aren’t.

They’re making a W sound just like the rest of us.

And you know what?

The February pronunciation is now more common.

Yeah, it does seem that way.

Doesn’t it?

And it’s listed in every dictionary that I can check here.

Yeah.

I do have a nostalgic love for the term February because of the Latin word februa, which I love to bring up.

It’s a word for a goatskin thong, not a thing that you wear, but a strip of goatskin that was used in an ancient fertility ritual in ancient Rome in the second month of the year.

These two young men clad in goatskin loincloths.

Are you liking this part?

Yeah.

These two young men clad in goatskin loincloths would run around the city thwacking women with these little goatskin thongs that were called februa.

And these were supposed to make the women fertile.

But they’re not going to thwack anybody with a goatskin thong if they say February.

Well, thank you so much.

You’re welcome, Dave.

Thank you for calling us.

All right.

So they’ll have to get fertile some other way.

That’s right.

All right.

Thanks.

Bye-bye.

Thanks.

Bye-bye.