I apologise for being somewhat OT, but am I the only one irritated to the
nth degree by Jeremy Paxman pronouncing the word “meteorology” as
“mee-tree-ology”? He’s been doing it for years. You would have thought
someone would have told him by now or, as the erudite fellow he seems to be,
he would have looked at the word and worked it out for himself.
And while I’m about it, even more OT, have you noticed how in all media,
people are saying “epicentre” when all they mean is “centre”. Sounds more
technical, you see.
And then there’s the word “dissect”. Almost everyone pronounces it
“dye-sect”, but there’s a double ‘s’ so the ‘i’ is short. Even highly
educated people do this.
Phew, that’s better!

Ian Bingham,
Inchmarlo, Aberdeenshire.