How to Pronounce Mobile

How to Pronounce Mobile How to Pronounce Mobile How to Pronounce Mobile By Maeve Maddox A reader wonders about the American pronunciation of the word mobile: When Americans refer to the thing that all of us carry around as our personal digital appendage, they rhyme it with â€Å"bill.† The rest of the world (i.e., where I live) pronounce it to rhyme it with â€Å"bile.† Im not talking about the adjective â€Å"mobile,† but the noun â€Å"mobile,† short for â€Å"mobile phone.† Does this have to do anything with the gas company which sounds the same? The word mobile functions as both an adjective and as a noun: Adjective The  mobile technology  may be a lot different in terms of the Internet platform, but they basically share a common medium: the Web. - Americans pronounce the adjective mobile to rhyme with noble. Noun Sallie bought a darling Winnie-the-Pooh mobile to hang above the babys bed. - Americans pronounce the noun mobile to rhyme with toe-heel (MOH-beel). The city in Alabama is usually pronounced MOH-beel. Sometimes it is pronounced moh-BEEL. The petroleum company spells its name Mobil and pronounces it MOH-bil. Its progenitor, Mobilgas, was founded in the 1920s; Americans were already pronouncing mobile to rhyme with noble. So, when did those wretched Americans start mispronouncing mobile? They didn’t. British speakers shifted their pronunciation of words ending in -ile from a short vowel sound to a long one. OED lexicographer R. W. Burchfield noted, â€Å"The division didn’t become clear-cut until about 1900.† This is how Charles Elster (The Big Book of Beastly Mispronunciations) puts it: throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, both British and American speakers pronounced -ile either with a short i (as in pill) or an obscure/silent i (as in fossil). For example, the English elocutionist John Walker, whose Critical Pronouncing Dictionary (1791) had a profound influence on both sides of the Atlantic well into the 19th century, favored the short i in nearly all -ile words, including juvenile, mercantile, and puerile, citing only chamomile, infantile, and reconcile as long i exceptions. In the 20th century, Americans were less consistent in their customary preference than the British were in their newfound preference, and the long i made some inroads in American speech. In regard to the question that prompted this post, Americans call those â€Å"personal digital appendages† neither MOH-biles nor MOH-bils. We call them cell phones. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Spelling category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Comparative Forms of Adjectives"Latter," not "Ladder"Dissatisfied vs. Unsatisfied