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up vote 5 down vote favorite

There are enough Google results with the misspelling above to suggest I'm not the only person who pronounces itinerary incorrectly.

So is this common or even acceptable to pronounce it in this way?

Excuse me if I'm way off the mark, but do the majority of people pronounce it differently from its spelling?

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Nice 印章 ! – Alain Pannetier Φ Apr 14 '11 at 7:52
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I think it's just one of those words whose pronunciation has evolved due to careless rounding off of the word. Like the word probably tends to be pronounced "probly." – Neil Apr 14 '11 at 9:20

1 Answer

up vote 4 down vote accepted

/aɪˈtɪnərəri/ seems to be the correct pronunciation, but have a listen: http://www.forvo.com/word/itinerary/

at least two of them do /aɪˈtɪnəri/

My personal opinion is to pronounce words the way the majority of respectable dictionaries and, for example news readers, would pronounce them. If I have been convinced that my pronunciation is incorrect (I try to speak and write British English) I will change it regardless of what a minority (or even a majority) would use.

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The name for this sort of shortening is haplology, which is the shortening of a word that contains two similar syllables. – JSBձոգչ Apr 14 '11 at 13:16
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The preferred U.S. pronunciation is /aɪˈtɪnərˌɛri/, from which it is much less likely that a syllable will be dropped. I expect this will end up one of the words like military and laboratory, where the British pronunciation drops a syllable that the Americans don't. – Peter Shor Apr 14 '11 at 16:27
As ever, we Brits lead the way in discarding redundant phonemes! I just wish we could apply the same rigour to orthography. – FumbleFingers Jun 6 '11 at 23:54

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