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In some podcasts (it seems the speaker was from California) I heard that the word "especially" was pronounced with "ks" sound like "ikspeshally".

What was it likely to be, personal way of pronouncing this word or a local dialect?

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    It's a common mispronunciation. Which is why it's commonly misspelled "expecially".
    – Peter Shor
    Commented Apr 4, 2014 at 20:52

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I live in Idaho and I hear people pronounce especially this way all of the time.

More often than not (at least around here) it gets pronounced either "ex-specially" or "eck-specially" or "eg-specially". There are many people here who have their own dialect.

Don't even ask me about "creek" and "crick"...

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  • O.o, I'm so sorry...Seriously, I'm pretty liberal when it comes to pronunciation, but why would people pronounce letters that aren't there??
    – kitukwfyer
    Commented Aug 11, 2010 at 23:36
  • Thanks for the info, I think that the speaker was maybe raised in Idaho and only later moved to California
    – rem
    Commented Aug 12, 2010 at 15:50
  • @kitukwfyer - Actually, I suspect that ignorance is partly to blame (ie - mispronounce it because they actually think its spelled that way)... who knows though.
    – Jagd
    Commented Aug 12, 2010 at 15:52
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    @kitukwfyer: remember that it's spoken language that is primary, at least in native speakers. So it's not "people pronounce letters that aren't there", but the other way round: the spelling does not reflect the actual pronunciation (in that dialect). As soon as you put it that way, it's obvious that this is nothing special (and not just in English, I might add). And no matter how much time you give it, spelling might or might not adapt to the pronunciation. (On the one hand, we no longer write thrid, we actually write third; on the other hand, we still write women rather than wimin.)
    – RegDwigнt
    Commented Jul 13, 2011 at 11:04
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    @kitukwfyer: "why would people pronounce letters that aren't there?" How do you pronounce colonel? Edinburgh?
    – Peter Shor
    Commented Apr 9, 2014 at 17:40
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I checked more than 10 dictionaries and the pronunciation of "especially" is given as:

/ɪˈspɛʃ(ə)li, ɛ-/

It's probably the personal way of pronouncing that word for the relevant person, which seems wrong to me.

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I was born and raised in California. I've spent time in many different Californian locales, and I have never heard that pronunciation.

I think the speaker misspoke or was trying to be cute.

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I've heard that pronunciation from people with Appalachian roots, but I think it is rare there. The same people tend to pronounce "nuclear" as "nucular", so the pattern seems to be to convert unusual (for the dialect) diphthongs to something more natural.

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I was raised in California and have heard that occasionally. I do not think it is a regional dialect in the sense that there is some part of California in which everyone speaks that way. It's more likely to be a social dialect of some kind.

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I am a native Southeast Texan, and most people pronounce especially with the "k" sound where I live. This has been a lifelong peeve to me, as I do not pronounce it that way myself. I pronounce it as it is spelled. I was an avid reader as a child, and saw it written before I ever heard it spoken.

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Pronunciation of "especially" is: /ə ˈspɛʃ li/ or /iˈspeSHəlē/.

Listen pronunciation from BeeDictionary or Google Dictionary

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Sounds like a mash-up with words like "exclusively", "exceptionally", etc.

That kind of thing happens a lot.

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I heard that the word "especially" was pronounced with "ks" sound like "ikspeshally".

That pronunciation is really weird. The word especially (at least in England and the rest of the UK) is normally pronounced with a certain "e" sound at the beginning, like the pronunciation of the letter e in the words bed, debt and get. In addition to that, it does not normally and is not supposed to have, a "ks" sound. It normally has an "s" sound there.

What was it likely to be, personal way of pronouncing this word or a local dialect?

It was probably just a personal way of mispronouncing, mangling the word.

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I heard a professor just today pronounce "especially" as expeshulee.

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