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Tangential Rant

by Flexo on May 31, 2005

in Career and Work

One small piece of business-speak grates my ears everytime I hear it. The word is processes. For some reason, supposedly intelligent business people are often reduced to pronouncing this word as if its root was an imaginary Greek word, processis. That is, they pronounce the last syllable of the plural as “EEZ.”

Unfortunately, like aks, nucular, and irregardless, “incorrect” pronunciations are used often enough by educated individuals that they become “accepted” or “acceptable” pronunciations.

This follows the general trends of language and dialect transformation throughout history, so I guess I can’t complain too much. Language is fluid.

Related links:

* Dictionary.com entry for “process”
* Top 100 most often mispronounced words
* History of the English language

Update: I swear this is just a coincidence. George W. Bush mangled English again today when he used the word disassemble (and defined the word incorrectly) when he meant dissemble (which happened to be Monday’s word of the day at Dictionary.com). Here’s the White House press transcript.

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About the Author

Flexo, the owner and creator of Consumerism Commentary, has been blogging and writing for the internet since 1995 and has been building online communities since 1991. Find out more about him and follow him on Twitter.

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