SSC: automaton

[muckefuck]

I don't care how often in my life I hear "aw-TOM-a-tohn". Every time I think of this word, I will always have to overcome my urge to pronounce it "auto-MATE-on".

Comments

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

Social position, perhaps not, but it will sound very strange, and probably uneducated, to a lot of people. I was taught that we do NOT pronounce the final "t" in those words, any more than we say "BAL-leT".

I also flinch when I hear "GA-teau".

When I was sixteen, I was part of a US-based youth orchestra. We went to a music festival in Aberdeen. Sixty of us. We managed to bully our long-suffering minder/guide/saint into pronouncing "buffet" "buf-FAY", US style. After hearing sixty US teenagers scream "buf-FAY" at her for a solid week, she accent switched. We all cheered.