You would think something like pronunciation would be pretty cut and dried, wouldn’t you? At least that’s what the engineer in me wants to believe. Just tell me the right way to pronounce it, and I’ll make sure I read it that way. What could be easier?
Except that apparently, the world of correct pronunciation is actually a battlefield. Who knew?
I was listening to “On The Media” on NPR yesterday, and learned that September 18 was the tercentenary of Samuel Johnson of England, who wrote the first dictionary of the English language. At least, it was the first “modern” dictionary in terms of format. I also learned that Webster, an American, decided that since America had declared its independence from England, with our own constitution, we should have our own American English language, complete with a unique American English dictionary. Thus the origin of Webster’s Dictionary. (Eventually, the Merriam brothers bought the rights to it when Webster died, thus creating the Merriam-Webster’s dictionary we know and love today.) To make it unique, Webster changed not only the spelling of many words (for example, -re became -er, and -our became -or), he also changed the pronunciation of many words. (al-loo-MIN-ee-um became a-LOOM-inum?) Eventually (in the 3rd editing, I think) the author decided to include not just the “correct” pronunciation (which keep in mind was different from the original Queen’s English pronunciation), but also local and regional pronunciations. By this point of course, the whole “correct pronunciation” thing had gotten pretty gummed up.
Fast forward to the present.
Hans Peterson posted a comment with a link to another pronunciation guide, this one from a professional voiceover. Mark Pennington posted a different link: the site posted by Mark Pennington
These two sites agree on some things , but completely contradict each other on others. For example, one says “off-ten” is the right way to say “often” while the other says “off-en” is correct because you would never say “soft-en”.
The bottom line? I decided to let Merriam-Webster serve as the official tie breaker. I looked up “often” in their online dictionary, which has the VERY handy function of an oral pronunciation guide, and guess what? It had two correct pronunciations: off-ten and off-en.
I think I’ll go with Han’s site, which points out that there’s a difference between formal and informal reading, and told us to figure out which we’re reading before, then decide how to pronounce the debatable words.
Ahhh, the things we delve into to perfect our craft!
What do you think about all this? Petty or Pet peave?
I’m wondering if there’s anyone else out there who would like to be a test subject and take a listen? I’ll take the first five people who are willing to listen carefully to what I’ve done and offer their honest, carefully thought out opinion. (Specific likes, specific dislikes, suggestions…) 
