This is probably one of the most commonly mispronounced words in the English language. The r in February has been dropped so that it is almost always pronounced Febuary–without the r. Perhaps this is because placing the r sound in the word makes it slightly more difficult to pronounce, and since laziness tends to get the upper hand when we speak, Febuary has become the common pronunciation. However, despite this, the word is correctly pronounced February. The English language has enough silent letters as it is. Remember to keep the r sound in February.
February
Posted in Pronunciation.
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FebRUary is an awful sound, so why does it matter if we pronounce it in the more euphonious fashion? I don’t pronounce Wednesday the way it’s spelled — so are you asking me to start?
In my previous diatribe, I found the mistake you’re likely to find in my compound sentence. Here it is, followed by its correction:
It reads: “…and are waste valuable time…”;
but should read: “…and are a waste of valuable time…”.
I’m only glad that I’m the one who initially found it, and since I found and corrected my mistake before anyone else did, it’s technically not a mistake. Tee hee…
Well, I went to the libary to research the word “adviser” at the beginning Febuary; here’s what I discovered:
A) The proper spelling for the type of facility I visited is “library”, not “libary” (library is pronounced the way it is correctly spelled…with 2 Rs);
B) The proper spelling for the word “adviser” is actually “advisor” (adviser is a misspelling…yes, “misspelling” is spelled with a double-S, and the word is also a gerund; gerund-a verb which acts as a noun) ;
C) I looked at a calendar and couldn’t find the month of “Febuary” anywhere on and/or in it, and subsequently learned that the name of the 2nd month of the year is correctly spelled “February” (see the comment for “Libary”).
Imagine my suprise at all of these inconsistencies, but then, I suddenly realized that most people are vacuous, insipid, inane and slothful blatherskites, who don’t care how uneducated they present themselves to be. Most of their teachers aren’t much better, and the one’s who are, have their “hands tied” by being required to teach political-correctness, diversity training and patronistic “tolerance” policies, which have nothing to do with a proper education, and are waste valuable time, which would be used to ensure America’s youth receive a proper and useful education. (That, by the way, is a proper, compound sentence).
Incidentally, the past-tense form of the word “wreak” is “wreaked”, not “wrought”.
No…I’m not an English teacher or English language major, just a humble, properly educated electrical engineer, who paid attention, that’s all.
All the letters are sounded in February. The first “r” is NOT silent, and the month is not pronounced “Feb-you-a-ry”, but “Feb-roo-a-ry”. You don’t get beer from a bewery after all, but a bRewery, and the Boston hockey team isn’t the Buins, but the BRuins. I don’t understand why people find it so hard to pronounce February right.
@Elizabeth Andrews
Do you also wince at those of us who pronounce the word “Past” as “Passt”, as opposed to “Parst”, I wonder?
Language evolves, get used to it.
oh nice a commentary on how education isn’t what it use to be. How f’ing original.
Even more ubiquitous these days is the dreadful “Feb-you-ary”, with a strong “y” sound. But it’s not hard to pronounce the word properly – people simply are not taught to do so any more.