A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English. 1996.
Page 227
juvenilia
This word, which is related to juvenile, is properly pronounced (j´´v-nl’-) or (j´´v-nl’y), with a short i in the third syllable. The misspelling juvenalia reflects the commonly heard pronunciation (j´´v-nl’y), with a long a in the third syllable. This pronunciation arose probably by association with words such as bacchanalia and paraphernalia, or by confusion with Juvenalian (referring to the Roman satirist Juvenal), all of which are pronounced with a long a. Neither the spelling, juvenalia, nor the pronunciation with long a has yet to be included in any dictionary, however, and so cannot be considered standard.
1
kerchief
The plural of this word is either kerchiefs (kûr’chfs) or (kûr’chfs´´) or kerchieves (kûr’chvz) or (kûr’chvz´´). The latter spelling is the older of the two, the change from f to v being the result of a phonological rule in Old English. Other words that follow this pattern are thief/thieves, leaf/leaves, and wife/wives. While many of the words that are in this category still have their traditional plurals, some have also adopted modern plurals ending in just s, as kerchief has. And some words of this type have lost the older plural almost completely, as has roof, whose only plural now is roofs, although you may still hear (rvz) or (rvz).
Many people insist that this word should have its primary stress on the first syllable so that it will conform to the same stress pattern in millimeter and centimeter. Language, however, does not always operate as regularly or logically as we might wish. Despite objections to the pronunciation with stress on the second syllable, which originally came about by false analogy with barometer and thermometer, it continues to thrive in American English. In a recent ballot, 69 percent of the Usage Panel preferred the pronunciation with stress on the second syllable, 29 percent preferred the pronunciation with stress on the first syllable, and 10 percent said they use both. Most dictionaries have given both pronunciations since the middle of the 19th century.
4
kudos
Because of the s on the end, this word, which comes from Greek, is often treated as a plural form, when in fact it is etymologically singular. But even people who correctly treat the word syntactically as a singular often pronounce it as if it were a plural. So properly, we would expect the final syllable to rhyme with loss, but more often than not it is pronounced like doze. Both pronunciations are now considered standard.
5
L
The letter L comes from the Roman alphabet and was used to represent the same sound in Old English as it did in Latin (and does now in Modern English). Although, generally speaking, the consonants have remained fairly stable throughout the history of recorded English, l is one exception, having been lost in Early Modern English in the pronunciation of many words such as should, would, calf, half, talk, walk, folk, yolk, balm, calm, and palm. But in recent years, this silent l has made something of a comeback in a number of
´´v
-n
l’
-
l’y
vz).
