Okay, time to let off a big pet peeve while we are (sorta) on the subject:
Newscasters try to sound smart and often mispronounce words by doing so. Everyone else follows.
If people mispronounce words because that is the way they learned them, who cares-- the point of language is communication so whatever. When new pronunciations become accepted due to this, that is fine too (like Poinsettia - which Midwesterners say without pronouncing the final "i" - now it is often recorded in dictionaries as an accepted variant, and why not). However, when people mispronounce words because they are trying so hard to sound smart, that kills me. Eventually accepting this smart-but-stupid-speak kills me more.
Examples:
Controversial is pronounced kahn-tro-ver-shul. NOT see-uhl. Ever. Never. It is an overpronunciation and it sucks. However, it has caught on. ugh. the "ial," though here with a preceding "s," has the same origins as that in many other words, such as "presidential." Should we say we have a spesh-ee-uhl pres-ih-dent-ee-uhl debate? Ugh.
Divisive. Good long, hard i in the middle of that word, please, newscaster-boys.
Formidable. Accent the first syllable. Otherwise it is the same mistake people make with comparable, but not because they are trying to sound oh-so-smart.
Okay, I'm done.
