Have you ever noticed that the American pronunciation of the letter i in various words is exactly "opposite" of the British way. Look at the following two word groups to understand what I mean…
Word group 1
- Anti-
- Semi-
- Hemi-
- Quasi-
Word group 2
- Mobile
- Fragile
- Docile
What I would really like to know is if this is a well known pattern and can be used to derive American pronunciations from their British counterparts (and vice-versa)?
Best Answer
I think it's over-optimistic, and probably not very possible, to try to derive a formula to come up with the right choice in all situations. In short, I doubt the usefulness of the proposed rule.
In my (American) experience, both pronunciations for anti/semi/hemi are used interchangeably, and probably inconsistently even in an individual's lexicon.
On the other hand, I feel like "quasi" ends in "zee" more often than "zai" or "sai."
For Mobile/Fragile/Docile, I find myself using a short i sound that makes them sound like "mohbuL" "frazhuL", "DossuL". I don't doubt for a second though that there are going to be Americans who also pronounce it with the "ile" sound.