asterisk

This was a pronunciation error that I myself was totally unaware of until just a few years ago. To most English speakers, the * symbol is called an asterick. Notice that I spelled it without an s because that is exactly how many people pronounce it. For some reason, the little s sound is too difficult to pronounce, so it is simply omitted altogether. It is not a silent sound, however. Remember to say it with the s sound.

Posted in Pronunciation.

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2 Comments:

  1. Benjamin Gallaher says:

    You mean that all of those teachers were incorrect? How infuriating!

  2. tulip says:

    well, I was taught to pronounce the omnipresent ‘*’ mark as
    ‘asterik’ and not ‘aster-isk’. Just like schedule which I was asked to pronounce as Shed-yule’ and not as
    ‘sked-dool’. Maybe, people switched to the new form after Asterix comics caught on.