Metrolingua

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5.04.2008

Insurance

Even though I'm a native English speaker, I always assumed that people pronounce the word "insurance" like "in-SUR-ance". But my husband and some other people say "IN-surance" (ie, the stress is on the first syllable instead of the second).

I looked it up at Merriam-Webster and expected them to have just "my" pronunciation, but they have both! Check it out--they have audio samples of each.

So the question is: is there a "correct" way to pronounce it, and if not, then why are there two ways?

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2 Comments:

At 10:20 AM, Blogger Paul D. said...

Could the IN-surance version be a regional dialect? I'm Canadian, and I've never heard anything but in-SUR-ance.

 
At 8:23 PM, Blogger mj said...

Maybe it's a southern thing.

 

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