WORDS WITH LETTERS
            PRONOUNCED TWICE

During my many years of study, I have often taken note of how some words share features that separate them from other words in our peculiar language. One group of words I've begun compiling is words that have one letter that seems to be pronounced twice. My list thus far is recorded below:

Note: An asterisk (*) prior to an entry indicates new content.

"Angle:" In this word, the "g" is pronounced twice: once at the end of "Ang," and another at the beginning of "gle." It seems that this word should either be pronounced as "Ang-le" or as "An-gle." "Angular" has similar issues.

"Churchill:" In this word, the second "h" is pronounced twice: once at the end of "Church" and another at the beginning of "hill." It seems that this word (in this case, a name) should be pronounced either as "Church-Ill," or as "Churk-Hill."

"English:" In this word, the "g" is pronounced twice: once at the end of "Eng" and another at the beginning of "glish." It should either be pronounced as "Eng-Lish," or as "En-Glish." The name "England" has similiar issues.

"Kangaroo:" Again, the "g" is pronounced twice: once at the end of "Kang" and again at the beginning of "gar." It should either be pronounced as "Kang-ar-oo," or as "Kan-gar-oo." The legger "g" seems to be the letter most frequently pronounced twice in words.

"Nazism:" In this word, the "i" is pronounced twice: once at the end of "Nazi" and the other at the beginning of "ism." It should either be pronounced as "Nazi-Zm," or as "Nots-Ism." (Note: There is an alternate spelling of "Naziism" for this particular word; both spellings are considered correct.)

"Sewer:" In this word the "w" is pronounced twice: once at the end of "sew" and again at the beginning of "wer." It should either be pronounced as "Soo-er" or as "See-wer."

"Singular:" In this word, the "g" is pronounced twice: once at the end of "sing" and again at the beginning of "gular." It should either be pronounced as "Sing-u-lar" or as "Sin-gu-lar." The word "Single" has similar issues.

"Threshold:" In this word, the second "h" is pronounced twice: once at the end of "Thresh" and the other at the beginning of "hold." It should either be pronounced as "Thresh-old" or as "Thres-hold."

"Wherever:" In this word, the middle "e" is pronounced twice: once at the end of "Where" and the other at the beginning of "ever." It should either be pronounced as "Where-Ver," or as "Whur-Ever."

"Zoology:" In this word, the second "o" is pronounced twice: once to make the "OO" sound in "Zoo," and the other to begin "ology." It should either be pronounced as "Zoo-Logy," or as "Zoh-Ology."

copyright © 2013 by A. J. Mittendorf
All rights reserved