Anna, who lives in the San Francisco Bay area, wonders if it’s okay to pronounce the word measure as ‘meɪʒər (rhyming with “hey sure”) instead of ‘mɛʒər (rhyming with “treasure”). This pronunciation is scattered across the United States, and in fact one of Jack Benny’s old radio announcers pronounced the word that way. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Pronunciation of Measure”
Hi, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, my name’s Anna. I’m calling from the San Francisco Bay Area.
Welcome to the show. What can we do for you, Anna?
So my question is something that’s been discussed in my family for a while. My sister, my mother, and I get made fun of for how we pronounce the word, what most people say, measure. We say measure. And living in California, everybody I’ve grown up with who’s noticed it has thought that we’re the only ones who do that. But the other person who did it was my grandmother, who was from South Dakota. So we are wondering what the reason might be.
Very interesting. That’s a significant fact, the South Dakota, I think.
Okay. Are there any other words that you pronounce differently than other people that you’ve noticed?
Not that it has been pointed out to me. No, pretty standard California English.
How do you say P-L-E-A-S-U-R-E?
Pleasure.
Pleasure. You don’t say pleasure?
Right.
How do you say M-E-N-U?
Menu.
Yeah, you don’t say menu. Okay, interesting.
You’re not alone in this. There are bunches of people who say measure around the United States. It isn’t very common, and I have not found any professional work that has been done on this pronunciation. Anecdotally, I have found a bunch of people have self-reported that they say it in parts of the Midwest, the Western Midwest, including the Dakotas and Nebraska, but I’ve also found pockets of other people who report that they say it in South Carolina and Missouri and parts of California and other places. I’ve also found some evidence, recorded evidence, by the way, that some famous people have said it, including Thomas Edison. And significantly to me, anyway, is that I listen to old time radio shows. The announcer for The Jack Benny Show, Don Wilson, says it. And I’ve listened to him say it for years. He would say major, but he also says main you. And he’s originally from Nebraska, which is not all that far from South Dakota. So I would not be surprised if your pronunciation of major is something that you inherited from someone from South Dakota, and it’s part of that regional feature. Now, it’s just a guess. I can’t prove it. We would have to do some professional field work to figure it out for sure, but that’s my guess.
Okay, very interesting. Somebody at work had mentioned that they thought that it was a Midwest thing, but I wasn’t sure if it had something more to do with my grandma’s Czech background or something more specific, but that’s really interesting.
Yeah, it’s not that she’s from the Czech Republic. And I want to be careful with the word Midwest because how we define the Midwest really varies in the United States. Some people think of Ohio as the Midwest, and some people wouldn’t include the Dakotas. We’re talking about the Great Plains states. We’re talking about the Dakotas and Nebraska mostly. But like I said, there’s self-reported data. If you Google this on the Internet of people from different parts of the United States who claim that they say it or they know people who say it. So, again, I don’t know of any professional study that has been done on this pronunciation. It may exist, but I don’t have it. But the good news is you’re not alone.
Yeah, you’re not alone. That’s good. It’s not unusual to find people who have an idiolect. The idiolect means your individual pronunciation, the collective body of how you say or how you speak. It’s not unusual for people to have these one-off pronunciations that differ from the people around them. It is a little unusual for it to occur kind of in family patterns. Often our pronunciations as children come from our peers, our classmates, and our friends, and not from our parents as much. But again, you’re not a rare beastie here.
Okay. Well, that’s good to know. I can prove some people around who have made fun of me.
Oh, yeah, absolutely. I hope it doesn’t keep you from saying that word.
No, not at all.
Oh, good. I do think of it most times I say it, though. And if I’m in a new group, sometimes I say it with the E sound just so we can move on and not focus on it.
Well, Ana, thank you for your call. We appreciate it.
Thank you so much.
Okay.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Bye.
Measure instead of measure. If you say measure instead of measure, for M-E-A-S-U-R-E, call us, tweet us, or email us. Ooh, ooh, data collection. We love it. 877-929-9673.
The question about the pronunciation of “measure” is one I’ve been meaning to ask for years, and my first thought was, “Now I’ll have to write and tell them about Jack Benny’s announcer, Don Wilson, whose pronunciation of ‘measure’ and ‘menu’ always made me wonder the same thing.” I never would have guessed that a few seconds later, Grant would cite the very same example.
What a joy to hear that Grant and I share the same affection for old-time radio, and especially Jack Benny. Benny’s rival, Fred Allen, is another of my old-time radio favorites, and the only person I’ve heard use the words “mulct” and “yclept” in conversation. And don’t even get me started on the linguistic treasure of Paul Rhymer’s “Vic and Sade.”
Whenever I listen to old radio programs, especially Jack Benny, I take notice of linguistic differences, such as a character asking, “Where are you stopping while you’re in Palm Springs?” instead of “Where are you staying?” There were also a couple of Benny episodes (which I need to search for) in which “xylophone” was pronounced “zilla-phone,” an oddity I’ve never seen or heard referenced anywhere else. Too bad I didn’t have these questions years ago when I had the pleasure of meeting Don Wilson in person!