Is "forte" pronounced "fort" or "for-tay"?

I've always heard people say something like

"Pronunciation is not my [for-tay]"

... but I feel that I've heard that the correct pronunciation is

"Confusing people is my [fort]"

What is the proper way to pronounce this word?

Solution 1:

If you want to be perfectly and unimpeachably correct, you will pronounce the word forte, meaning something that is one’s strong point, identically to the word fort, and reserve the FOR-tay pronunciation only for the musical term.

Most people don't know about this distinction and pronounce it FOR-tay for all senses, both the “strong point” sense as well as the musical term. Most people will not notice or care if you do that. In fact, if you say that some subject is or is not your “fort”, people will look at you quizzically and perhaps even ask “do you mean FOR-tay?”. On the other hand, if you use the pronunciation “FOR-tay” those of us who know the difference may judge you to be ignorant.

In either case, you take a risk of some sort. Bryan Garner came up with the name “skunked term” for words like this, in his 1998 Dictionary of Modern American Usage:

When a word undergoes a marked change from one use to another … it’s likely to be the subject of dispute. Some people (Group 1) insist on the traditional use; others (Group 2) embrace the new use.… Any use of [the word] is likely to distract some readers. The new use seems illiterate to Group 1; the old use seems odd to Group 2. The word has become “skunked.”

My advice is to find a substitute word or phrase.

Solution 2:

This source http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/forte suggests that the correct pronunciation of the word in your context is 'fort', as it is derived from the French 'fort' (strong) and the 'for-tay' pronunciation appeared through confusion with the 'forte' in music meaning loud, which is Italian and correctly pronounced 'for-tay'.