What's the Canad. pronunciation of the word mischievous?

[utsavviradiya]

It looks like to me that the guy in this video is pronouncing the word "mischievous" incorrectly. He's a native Canadian English speaker. Is there any truth to my suspicion?

 

[jutfrank]

This is one of those cases where prescriptivists will say that the way he pronounces it is wrong and descriptivists will argue that being so common as it is, it's therefore a valid alternative.

It has nothing to do with him being Canadian.

 

[utsavviradiya]

This is one of those cases where prescriptivists will say that the way he pronounces it is wrong and descriptivists will argue that being so common as it is, it's therefore a valid alternative.

It has nothing to with him being Canadian.

Thanks.

Questions:
1) Have you ever pronounced the word the way he did?
2) Do you endorse that pronunciation?

 

[Skrej]

That's actually how I pronounce the word. I wasn't even aware it was considered non-standard. Merriam Webster has a brief note about the two pronunciations.

 

[SoothingDave]

Yeah, I say it "wrong," too.

 

[emsr2d2]

I always correct that pronunciation. For it to be correct, there would need to be an extra "i" after the "v". There isn't.

 

[jutfrank]

I always correct that pronunciation. For it to be correct, there would need to be an extra "i" after the "v". There isn't.

Spoken like a true prescriptivist!

Anyway, I think you've got things back to front. Pronunciation doesn't come from the way words are spelled—spelling is the written form of pronunciation. So the way that the person in the original post says it would be spelled 'mischievious', with an extra 'i', whether you consider it a misspelling or not.

 

[emsr2d2]

Are you an accepter of the pronunciation "nucular" for "nuclear" then? That has everything to do with how the word is spelled. There is only one "u" so the mispronunciation is clearly an error, not just a choice of pronunciation.
And yes, "mischievious" is a misspelling. I would accept it only in a transcript of direct speech, in which the writer wants to draw attention to the fact that the speaker mispronounced "mischievous".

 

[Tarheel]

Gee, I didn't know that was the "wrong" way. (Where I'm from everybody pronounced it with the "extra" syllable.)

 

[jutfrank]

Are you an accepter of the pronunciation "nucular" for "nuclear" then? That has everything to do with how the word is spelled.

I don't accept it, no. I've always thought that children's problems with pronouncing 'nuclear' come from the cluster in the middle of the word. I don't think it has anything to do with spelling.

There is only one "u" so the mispronunciation is clearly an error, not just a choice of pronunciation.

Yes, it's a pronunciation error. (To be honest, I don't think I follow exactly what you mean.)

I imagine that it's a kind of interference error, where the speaker has at the back of her mind the pronunciation of other words such as 'particular'/'spectacular', etc., using /kjələ/, which is a fairly common syllabic pattern. The /kliə/ syllable is very uncommon (maybe unique?).

And yes, "mischievious" is a misspelling.

I actually agree with that, but my point is that from a descriptive approach you can argue that it's a valid alternative spelling.

 

[probus]

I'm a Canadian aged 75+. In my youth my family and everyone I knew put that extra syllable i-sound into mischevous, so it should probably be considered a regionalism.

 

[jutfrank]

I don't think it can be tied to a region. It seems pretty universal to me.

 

[emsr2d2]

I don't accept it, no. I've always thought that children's problems with pronouncing 'nuclear' come from the cluster in the middle of the word. I don't think it has anything to do with spelling

It's not just children, though. Plenty of adults mispronounce it. I even once emailed the BBC when one of their reporters said it that way.

Yes, it's a pronunciation error. (To be honest, I don't think I follow exactly what you mean.)

I thought you were arguing that it should be considered an alternative correct pronunciation. That's what I'm disagreeing with.

I actually agree with that, but my point is that from a descriptive approach you can argue that it's a valid alternative spelling.

I accept that it's an alternative spelling but only when reporting direct speech, as I said before. For the life of me, I can't get Ngram to give me both spellings on the same graph but the standard spelling outstrips that "alternative" by a huge margin when I do them separately.

 

[jutfrank]

It's not just children, though. Plenty of adults mispronounce it.

Right. I didn't mean to make any particular point by mentioning children.

I thought you were arguing that it should be considered an alternative correct pronunciation. That's what I'm disagreeing with.

No, I'm not arguing that. I was just saying that you could easily make that argument. It depends what kind of approach to correctness you take.

I accept that it's an alternative spelling but only when reporting direct speech, as I said before. For the life of me, I can't get Ngram to give me both spellings on the same graph but the standard spelling outstrips that "alternative" by a huge margin when I do them separately.

I don't seem to be having the same issue. Here: https://books.google.com/ngrams/gra...1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3

The form with the extra 'i' is not quite zero, but pretty close. That could well represent only one or two possible cases.

 

[tzfujimino]

Interesting.

I didn't know the word is pronounced in the way shown in the video.

I'd like to ask native English speakers/teachers the following question:

How would you reply if a non-native speaker of English asked you "How should I pronounce 'mischievous'?"

 

[5jj]

/'mɪstʃɪvəs/. I'd add that they might hear the extra syllable from some people.

 

[PeterCW]

I don't think that it is a word that I have ever had occasion to write but my first reaction was to pronounce it with the "i".

I have seen the spelling with the "i" quoted from as far back as the 18th century.