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Saturday, August 15, 2009

Commonly Mispronounced words 4 - equity

Some words really baffle me. When you have amateurs mispronouncing the words, one can rationalise it. But when you have subject matter experts mispronouncing simple words pertaining to their subject matter, it makes you wonder.

One such word found in the financial services sector is 'equity'. The word is simple. 99.99% of the people who belong to the financial sector would know and understand this word. A high percentage of even the non-finance guys would know and understand this word. But the murder of this word is to be 'seen' to be believed. Everybody starts with the 'ee' sound - as in 'ee hai bambai nagariyaa' or the 'ee' sound in 'bee' and call it 'ee-quit-ee'. The correct (and the only acceptable) pronunciation is eck-quit-ee. The eck will rhyme with 'peck' or the 'heck' in 'what the heck'.

Next time you watch CNBC or NDTV Profit or any so called stock market expert wax eloquent about certain stocks, please watch out for the pronunciation of this word. I would surely not buy the tips of a person who recommends equity but does not know how to pronounce it. But then I would not buy stock tips at all.

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