Pronunciation anomaly

[Brian Ellis]

When I was a schoolkid, the hectare, as pronounced by my teachers, was hektaar. Several times recently, the BBC has said hektair, which has grated on my delicate lug'oles. I looked it up today in the OED, which gives both pronunciations, but with the hektair first. Yet, when I looked up 'are' (n, = 100 m2), it gives just the single aar pronunciation, with no mention of 'air'. This seems very anomalous because adding a multiplier prefix should not change the basic unit, IMNSHO. What say you?

[High_Jumbllama]

You're trying to make sense of the english language. Whether the queen's, yank's or the many others, there is no hope in this.

[RedRed]

are - thats how I say it, but then again I say tomahto......, being from Norern ireland, I do have a different way of speaking too........

[Dr Mordrid]

'Hek-tair' is typical here, even if 99.9% of the time we use acres..

English is a work in progress

[MultimediaMan]

To paraphrase a line from "My Fair Lady"; When Prof. Harry Higgins (Rex Harrison) makes the offhand comment that "The Americans haven't spoken the language in years..."

Truer words have never been spoken. I'd defy Brian Ellis to talk to someone from South Central LA.

[TnT]

To paraphrase a line from "My Fair Lady"; When Prof. Harry Higgins (Rex Harrison) makes the offhand comment that "The Americans haven't spoken the language in years..."

Truer words have never been spoken. I'd defy Brian Ellis to talk to someone from South Central LA.

Yeah, but they are the only ones adding cool new words to the English language.
badonkadonk

[Jammrock]

hektarr is how I know it.

[Jon P. Inghram]

Just check the wikipedia entry, it will clarify things: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hectare

Wierd, the article is working now, when I checked it a few minutes ago the page was totally blank, kinda ruins the joke.

[az]

In german, it's hecktahr.

[lowlifecat]

^ I'm with stupid ^

[cjolley]

Here in Oklahoma it's Heck Tar

As in "What the HECK TAR they"?

[ZokesPro]

LOL @cjolley

[Dr Mordrid]