I've been saying it wrong all these years...

[steve_earwig]

In a kind of parallel to Welly's driving thread...

Here's a linguistic one for you: My wife's in the next room teaching little kids English. I know she hates it but sometimes I can't resist correcting some of her more major mistakes. Just now I heard her telling the kids to pronounce exciting "ik-sy-ting". Hold on, Ik? It's an E! So she produces an English dictionary that clearly shows the pronunciation "ik-", plus a whole lot of words besides: Are the Daleks really saying "IKSTERMINATE"? So I Googled it and yes, it's right - http://dictionary.cambridge.org/diction ... q=exciting# Have I really been saying it wrong for 40-something years? Help! My credibility as an English-speaking native is in doubt!!

[Doggy]

The dictionary clearly expects non native english speakers to pronounce 'iks' as 'ex', (in a manner not entirely dissimilar to our antipodean friend and his 'deck' earlier in the week).

Simples.

[steve_earwig]

A further Google brings up http://english.stackexchange.com/questi ... ng-with-ex Apparently it's dialectic - the way me (and the BBC) pronounce these words is all down to regional variations. I guess I should be happy at that but I'm not - the way I speak seems to differ from how I'm supposed to speak and, as I keep saying, there's only one person who speaks like that and she's German!

[rwb]

It's difficult to think about without using the words in a sentence.

But I think in 'excited' I'm always definitely an 'e', and that Birmingham is always an 'i'. And the middle vowel is ai (and I can drag it out to two syllables) vs. oi.

[Welly]

I say 'ex' too as that's the way it's spelt

Bit of a strange one this but I surmise most would say 'ex' to be fair.