Today's rambling: English is silly.
Written on Saturday, Jul. 26, 2003 at 2:20 a.m.
while feeling a bit

Why is it that 'comparably', a word spawned from 'compare', is pronounced 'COMPerably'?

'Compare' is pronounced 'comPAIR'!

My entire life (well, since I knew of the word), I have pronounced it 'comPAIRably'. The word 'comparable' has been similarly pronounced. It only makes sense. When car commercials said "...when comparably equipped," I never knew what the hell that second word was until just 2 days ago! Then again, I never pay much attention to car commercials, but that's not the point.

The point is, 'comparably' and all its other similar spellings should be pronounced like 'compare', the word from which it was spawned. You don't see anyone walking around going, "COMPer this to that," do you?

That's what I thought.

As much as it will grate on every English professor I may ever meet in this lifetime, I will consider to pronounce it 'comPAIRably'. It's only right. Darned English language...

COMPerably. *scoffs*

(this rant was completely random, and is not something I generally think about very often.)