ETcetera pronounced as EXetera ? Correct?

I keep hearing everyone at my work (Native speakers) saying e-X-etera. They said my pronunciation of the word as e-T-cetera was incorrect. I got into a big argument, they thought I was mad.

Is there some unknown rule as to why "etcetera" should be pronounces as "exetera"?

Solution 1:

The pronunciation of "et cetera" is an extremely common pet peeve, to the extent that there is a lot written about it on the Internet already. E.g.

• https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/pronunciation-etcetera-etc.1025972/

• http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/blog0701.htm

• https://www.quora.com/I-hear-some-people-pronounce-etc-as-ekcetra-which-is-correct

• https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/how-to-pronounce-etcetera

It's one of the particular words that people tend to give as examples of "mispronunciations" that drive them nuts, or that kind of thing, along with the supposedly common "mispronunciations" of words like specific, supposedly and library. I find it a bit odd that you hadn't run into any information about this before posting your question here on this site.

You can always check a dictionary to see what it gives for the pronunciation of a word. That seems more productive than getting into a "big argument" with people who probably don't know as much as dictionary makers. For example, Merriam-Webster gives your preferred pronunciation first: "\ et-ˈse-tə-rə , -ˈse-trə also it- , nonstandard ek- , nonstandard ik- \". (But there's no way to force your coworkers to take that seriously if they are attached to their accustomed pronunciation.)

So, there is no rule saying that et cetera "should" be pronounced as "exetera". It's perfectly fine to pronounce it with /ts/ as you have been doing. The reasons for pronunciation variants are often unclear, but I've seen it suggested that the pronunciation with /k/ arose because of the influence of words starting with the common prefix ex-, which is pronounced with /ks/. There are also supposed to be pronunciation variants of escape and especially that have /ks/, and of course /ks/ is extremely common in espresso (although still stigmatized by many people).

There is no simple definition of "correct" pronunciation, so if you want to ask if a pronunciation is "correct", you have to specify what criteria you are using. (Or rather than asking about correctness, you could ask about something else that is less arguable.) There are many pronunciations that are commonly accepted, but that don't correspond to etymology or spelling; e.g. fuchsia is pronounced as /ˈfjuːʃə/ "few-sha" despite coming from the German name Fuchs [fʊks] (more or less "fooks") and being spelled (in standard written English) with "chs", which as far as I know does not correspond to the sound /ʃ/ in any other English word. Rationale is pronounced /ræʃəˈnæl/ or /ɹæʃəˈnɑːl/, despite coming from the Latin word rationale, where the e is pronounced and not silent (compare and contrast with the pronunciation of simile). Colonel is infamously pronounced kernel.

Solution 2:

Pronunciations vary according to the local dialect, as well from person to person.

There are many examples of variants according to local dialect, even within the same country. It's not reasonable to label any one of them as "incorrect", especially considering the etymological basis of the words.

In your example, et cetera is pronounced /et ˈkeː.te.ra/ in Classical Latin (according to linguistic reconstruction) and /et ˈt͡ʃe.te.ra/ in Ecclesiastical Latin . Neither of these match any of the modern pronunciations used in English.

In fact, a linguistic survey of the United States performed by Harvard University covered this exact word.

In this map, it can be seen that the "e[ts]etera" pronunciation (labelled red) actually comprises a majority (65%) of the speakers surveyed. Other common pronunciations include "e[ts]etra" (12%, blue), "eksetera" (15%, green) and "eksetra" (6%, purple).

Solution 3:

Both are technically correct in modern usage. The form you prefer is technically the phonetically correct English pronunciation of the original Latin term (et cetera). The other form is in sufficiently common usage to be also considered 'correct' by linguistic standards. Personally, here in the American midwest, I hear the first one more often among academics (and language snobs), and the second more often in other contexts.

You can find all kinds of words like this though which have multiple pronunciations which people argue over. Other examples include:

• Tomato. Some people pronounce it with a long 'a', others with a short 'a'. 'Potato' has a similar dual.pronunciation.
• Theatre. Some people treat the 'ea' as a single vowel sound, others split it to two long vowels (and of course there's the 'er' versus 're' argument, which is mostly an American versus Brittish thing).
• Nuclear. Pronounced either phonetically correctly, or as 'nukyular'.
• Caramel. Pronounced either phonetically correctly, or as 'carmel'.
• Asterisk. Pronounced either phonetically correctly, or as 'asteriks'.
• Orangutan. Pronounced either phonetically correctly, or with an extra terminal 'g' sound. This one is particularly interesting because the phonetic pronunciation is linguistically correct too (it's a loanword from Malay, and adding the 'g' sound at the end changes the meaning in Malay), but the other form is the dominant one in many places here in the US because of a strong tendency of English speakers using certain dialects to change a final 'n' sound following a vowel to an 'ng' sound with loanwords from some languages (which is ironic, because the reverse is the common case for many English words).

In most cases, one form or the other will dominate in a given dialect.

Solution 4:

As much as we might wish to fight against this kind of pronunciation shift, nonetheless it is a common linguistic phenomenon called metathesis.

For example, I'm sure that many people might object to the similar mis-pronunciation "ax" for the word "ask". However, as explained here, "ask" is itself a metathesis of an earlier pronunciation "ax"!!