Elements of Speech

The pronunciation of certain words in everyday speech has always been a controversial subject. Take a word like "controversy" for instance: most people articulate it with four distinct syllables as "con-tro-vur-see", whereas people like myself who were taught to speak correctly say "con-trovosee". It is, of course, a Latin word - controversia - which means my pronunciation would appear to be the proper one. Raise your hands everyone who agrees with me ...yes, yes, yes ... so that's everybody, then. Good. I win.

Learning to speak with diction both pure and true was actually a feat of amazing endurance on my part. The odds were stacked against me since I did not respond well to that particular manifestation of scholastic authority and the ludicrously deranged, wizened figure who enforced it - imagine taking piano lessons from Dr. Strangelove -yet I somehow managed to transform my tongue into a wrecking ball and I demolished those formidable academic odds. Not that I wish to present myself as some sort of elocutionary hero, but think of me as, perhaps, a sort of Shackleton of Sentences.

Comments

[Outer Life]

In Los Angeles we say "CON-troversy," pronouncing both of the "r" sounds. I don't think I've ever heard anyone pronounce it the way you do. Once we heard this guy pronounce it as "con-TRO-versy" which, of course, required us to beat the crap out of him.

[stephenesque]

Everyone in the Northeast seems to say Con-tro-versee except me. You seem to say it in a similar way to the way I do, but I don't really put much emphasis on the second r.

[Mrs. Peperium]

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[DarkoV]

Philly-style, controversy is...
..Koncha vers, with the "y" sometimes kicking in and sometimes not. That first "r" never makes the cut.

[Monjo]

I bet you picked con-trov-es-see deliberatly.

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