Judi’s Reviews > There is No Zoo in Zoology, and Other Beastly Mispronunciations: An Opinionated Guide for the Well-Spoken > Status Update

diesel DEE-zuul, not DEE-suul.

DEE-suul has been listed in most dictionaries since the 1960s, but is not preferred.
Diesel comes from Rudolph Diesel, a German automotive engineer. Webster 2 (1934), notes that in German the letter S is pronounced "like Engish S in rose at the beginning of a word...and before a vowel." We should follow this rule when we say diesel (DEE-zuul), for it breaks no rule of English nor ...

dew DYoo.

There is a tendency in American speech to change the YOO or logn U sound in many words to an OO sound (as in soon). We are in the process of dropping YOO/long U from such words as duty, assume, presume, attitude, aptitude, astute, nutrition, student, and the like. Directly following an initial S, the long U is rarely heard from Americans. We say SOOT for suit and SOOPER for super; the British say SYOOT...

despicable DES-pik-uh-buul. Now usually duh-SPIK-uh-buul.

DES-pik-uh-buul has been the preferred renunciation for a hundred years, and duh-SPIK-uh-buul was often labeled incorrect or erroneous until the 1960s, when it became unfashionable for dictionaries to use that sort of word. Despite the popularity of Duh-SPIK-uh-buul (perhaps owing in part to the slobbering cartoon character Daffy Duck's penchant for ...

depot DEE-poh.

Many authorities make the alternative DEP-oh (DEP-rhyming with step) as chiefly military and British. American usage has alway favoured DEE-poh (DEE- rhyming with see ), and it seems reasonable to use it for all the word's senses.

deluge (noun and verb) DEL-yooj.

This word takes a little practice to pronounce correctly. Difficulty with it has resulted in a DEL-yooj of variants, including DEL-yoozh, DEL-oozh, DEL,-ooj, de-LOOJ, and de-LOOZH. Most dictionaries do not list any pronunciation other that DEL-yooj, in which the first syllable is stressed and the second syllable sounds like the word huge wothout the H.

deity DEE-i-tee, not DAY-i-tee. See homogeneity, spontaneity.

decrease (noun) DEE-krees; (verb) de-KREES.

In words of two syllables,,.that do double duty as nouns or adjectives on the one Han and as verbs on the other, it is the custom, with a few exceptions, to accent the nouns and adjectives upon the first syllable and the vers upon the last.
-W.H.P. Phyfe, 18,000 Words Often Mispronounced.

Phyfe's rule, outlined in 1926, holds true today for many words.

decibel DES-i-=bel. Do not say DES-i-buul.

The bel in this word comes from Alexander Graham Bell. On ohm (named after George Simon Ohm) is never called an um, nor is a watt (named after James Watt) ever called a what. The legal of a man is at stake her. Remember that the E in the last syllable should be as clear as a bell.

data DAY-tuh, not DAT-uh.
All my sources prefer DAY-tuh. The alternative pronunciation DAT-uh has been recorded since the 1940s, but has always been listed second to DAY-tuh. Another variant, DAH_tuh, is sometimes listed third, it dates back tot he nineteenth century or perhaps earlier, and is less frequently heard today.
The reason data is pronounced DAY-tuh is because it was taken into English from Latin ...

dais DAY-is, not DY-is.
This word should be pronounced in two syllables, the first like the word day and the second like the word kiss without the K. Those who pronounce it Dy-is (with the first syllable like the word die) are wrong because they treat the A and I not as separate vowels to be sounded distinctly, but as a diphthong with a single sound, as in aisle. Then, in the second syllable they pronounce the...