Pronunciation Pieces are short, light articles, each one usually focusing on an English word or phrase that illustrates a feature of phonetic or linguistic interest. They originally appeared in the series ‘Words of the Week’. They cover a wide range of topics include weak forms, contractions, linking R, T-epenthesis, G-dropping, T-glottaling, compound stress, rhoticity, vowel linking, aspiration, T/D-deletion, TH-fronting, tricky word stress, numerals, tricky spellings, negative transfer, pronouncing foreign words, accents of English, numerals, intonation, accentuation, word endings, prefixes and many others.

Breksit, Bregzit

/3 Comments/in /by

breksitThere can’t be many words which have gone from non-existence to omnipresence as quickly as Brexit.

People are divided not only on how they feel about Britain’s departure from the EU, but also on how they pronounce this word. Brits generally pronounce the x as /ks/:

but many Americans pronounce it /gz/:

This difference reflects the two pronunciations of the word exit (both noun and verb) which predominate on either side of the Atlantic. We can see the difference in a preference poll which John Wells took some years back for his Longman Pronunciation Dictionary:Screen Shot 2016-07-03 at 3.02.14 PMIt’s my impression that the UK-US divergence has if anything become more marked. Certainly we can find American dictionaries which prioritize /gz/, eg Merriam-Webster:exit_mwand British dictionaries which list only /ks/, eg Macmillan:exit_macmHere anyway are some Brits with /ks/:

and some Americans with /gz/:

The /ks/ pronunciation is consistent with a generalization in English regarding ex- and stress: if the e is more strongly stressed than the following vowel we get /ks/, if the reverse we get /gz/. Common examples of /ks/ after stress are:

é/ks/ercise, dyslé/ks/ia, flé/ks/ible, hé/ks/agon, lé/ks/icon, sé/ks/y, É/ks/eter, Mé/ks/ico, Té/ks/as

And examples of /gz/ before stress are:

e/gz/áct, e/gz/ággerate, e/gz/ámple, e/gz/écutive, e/gz/háust, e/gz/híbit, e/gz/íst, e/gz/ótic, Ale/gz/ánder

(The /gz/ pronunciations can survive even when a more strongly stressed suffix is added, eg e/gz/ist-éntial.)

So pronouncing éxit and Bréxit with /gz/ goes against the stress generalization. Perhaps it’s an American declaration of independence.

Further notes

Other exceptions to the stress generalization are those words written with exc. These are pronounced with /ks/ regardless of stress, eg éxcellent, excéption.