TransWikia.com

How do you pronounce 'hypocritical'?

English Language & Usage Asked on April 6, 2021

How to pronounce ‘hypocritical’?

  1. http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/90495 states that it should be /hɪpəʊˈkrɪtɪkəl/.

  2. https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/hypocritical and https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/hypocritical indicates otherwise as /ˌhɪpəˈkrɪtɪkl/

Which one is better and/or more common?

One Answer

I can't tell you which is better, but the difference seems to be to lie in whether the "hypo-" part is treated as a separate word. An unstressed non-low vowel in English is tensed and diphthongized ordinarily only at the end of a word or before a vowel. Some long prefixes like "photo-" or "pseudo-" can have unstressed diphthong "o" at the end. It is not intuitively obvious whether the "hypo" of "hypocritical" is a prefix.

Correct answer by Greg Lee on April 6, 2021

Add your own answers!

Ask a Question

Get help from others!

© 2024 TransWikia.com. All rights reserved. Sites we Love: PCI Database, UKBizDB, Menu Kuliner, Sharing RPP