Realtor Pronunciation

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Elizabeth, and I live in Tallahassee, Florida.

Well, welcome to the program, Elizabeth. We’re glad to have you.

Thank you. I’m calling because I have a pet peeve with the word realty.

Aha.

Most people mispronounce it, and it just drives me a little nutty.

Do you think we should change the spelling?

Absolutely not.

Just wondered.

No, I know it.

I know what you mean.

Give me some examples.

Okay, I have this friend who owns a real estate company,

And I called him up one day, and he answers to phone Smith Realty.

I said, John, you’re a realtor, and you don’t even know how to pronounce the word.

Can you pull out your business card and look at the word realty?

You know, and of course, he’s never changed saying it.

And then I have this girlfriend, and she always mispronounces realty, realtor.

And I’m Karen.

The word is realtor, realty.

And she says, well, I’m from North Carolina, and that’s the way we pronounce it.

I said, Karen, it’s not a colloquialism.

It’s mispronounced.

And I just thought it was funny.

I heard your show one evening a couple of weeks ago.

I said, I’ve got to call somebody about realty.

Do you feel better now, Elizabeth?

I really do. I finally got someone that will listen to me.

Most people go, yeah, yeah, whatever.

I guess we better not say that, Grant.

No, no.

No, seriously, I feel your pain.

It’s not a regional kind of thing, as far as I can tell.

It’s just people misunderstanding, mispronouncing the word.

Well, I understand why they do it.

It’s because real estate, you know, two different words.

And so they just transfer that over to the singular word, you know.

And what’s going on there linguistically is what we call metathesis,

Where the letters, they do a do-si-do right there in the middle of the word

In terms of the pronunciation.

And you know what?

I used to drive every day past a realty college,

And every time I would look at it, I would think it said reality college.

And I was thinking, I know some people who need to go there.

In fact, I need to go to reality.

College. I think I do, too.

It’s a tricky word, right? Yes. Well, you know, words change over the years,

You know. You’re right.

By how they’re used, and they’ll just say, well, let’s just change it.

You’re right, and we all have different pronunciations for things. In fact, I think you and I pronounced

The word R-E-A-L a little bit differently.

Yeah, I was just thinking, sitting here listening to you, you’re cracking up to myself because

Is that it sounds a little more like rural than it does real.

Well, now see, that could be my southern accent.

Yeah.

It’s a fine line between mispronunciation and an accent, though.

Right.

Oh, right, right.

No, you’re fine.

It’s a legitimate pronunciation, and actually there are pockets of that.

I call it the meal-mill merger.

You’ll find that around the country where people,

Those vowels are starting to become more like each other.

And there’s an interesting thing to be said about realty and realtor, and that is that realtor has two, at least two legitimate pronunciations, realtor and realtor.

And so it’s already made the transformation to having two different legitimate ways to be said.

Realty probably is, as you say, Elizabeth, not far behind in having two legitimate pronunciations.

But the thing is, there’s that schwa sound before the L that tends to get transposed with the L, as Martha was saying, the metathesis.

And that’s what’s thrown in people.

It sounds more natural in the mouth.

It feels more right for the L to precede that schwa sound.

I see.

Elizabeth, I’m glad that you’re relieved and you’re feeling better.

You should go and have some cake and ice cream.

I think I will.

Top it off, you know.

Have a good day.

A few cherries on top and maybe a stiff drink.

Oh, yeah.

All of the above.

All of the above.

Thank you for calling.

Thanks for listening.

We’re glad to talk to you.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Bye-bye.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Sometimes you just got to get that stuff off your chest.

You do.

And you can do that by calling 1-877-929-9673.

They can also send an email to words@waywordradio.org,

And they can talk to other listeners on our discussion forums at waywordradio.org/discussion.