Do you say 'coo-pon' or 'cue-pon'?
Tomato, tomahto: Where you live influences how you pronounce the word. (But one way is just WRONG.)
The result?
"Cue-pon" won. Some 57% of Americans use the wrong pronunciation.
The horror. I don't care if the dictionary gives it both ways. Cue-pon. It just sounds weird. "Cue." Rhymes with "eeww."
You're more likely to say it wrong if you live in New Mexico, Idaho, Missouri, South Dakota or North Dakota. I bet you folks say "rout" when you mean "route," too.
People who know how to pronounce coo-pon correctly are most heavily concentrated in New Hampshire, New Jersey, Hawaii, Rhode Island and Washington, D.C.
Steven Boal, CEO of Coupons.com, says he was "shocked" by the 57% figure. Post continues below.
"(I've) been calling it Coo-pons.com from the beginning," he says. "Maybe it's time I change my ways."
Don't do it, Steven. Think of the children!
Another surprise that came from the company's survey: For the first time a nonfood category was No. 1 in the top 10 most popular coupons.
"Household cleaners" beat out that old favorite, ready-to-eat cereal. Maybe there were better coo-pons for Mr. Clean than for Cap'n Crunch.
How about it, readers: Coo-pon or cue-pon?
More on MSN Money:
The word "coupon" comes from the French word "couper" (pronounced: coo-pay), which means "to cut." Therefore, "coupon" is pronounced correctly as "coo-pon." (It doesn't matter what region of the United States or elsewhere you come from, as that has nothing to do with it).
PS, a coupe style car is not pronounced "cuep." It's "coop."
There. It's settled.
coo-pon.
Please note that the Random House Unabridged Dictionary (2e) says that pronunciation of coupon as "cue-pon" is "used by educated speakers and is well-established as perfectly standard, although ii is sometimes criticized."
This appears to be one of those times.
As for "route" pronounced as "rout": Here, RH Unabridged 2e doesn't even comment (this second pronunciation). Kinda like, it isn't even fair game for the Pooobahs of Pronunciation.
Now! If you want to feel really illiterate when it comes to correct pronunciation, open to any page, at random, Charles Harrington Elster's "The Big Book of Beastly Mispronunciations (Houghton Mifflin, New York, 1999). When perusing this nightmare, the one thought I guarantee you will have is, "Good Lord, everything I know is wrong!"
Cheers.
I find the most objectionable pronunciation is the word "sure". It is not "shore" and is not connected through definition in any way. Nearly all newscasters and politicians seem to have flunked third grade in elementary school. It is a good example of the dummy down process of the "American" education system. All Major news agency writers (even MSNBC) seem to have dropped using word correction programs or proof reading an article. The use of "texting" seems to have infected 90% of all the population. Why do we even spend our tax dollars on a failed education system?
How about Peecan or Pe cahn...(pecan) or paJAMas or pi' JAH mas...(pajamas) Here in Texas we say piCAHN and piJAHmas. No one likes JAM in their pj's. Here are some more Southern Versions of words: Y'ont to (do you want to); Yeatyet (did you eat yet?) I'm fixin' to (I'm going to); a'ight (all right) ; Imo (I'm going to...even Pastor Joel Osteen uses this one a lot.) Humor breaks a lot of hard bones.
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