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Thursday, November 10, 2011

Commonly Mispronounced Words 28 - Quotient

I was watching Kaun Banega Crorepati. A spoken English trainer landed up as a contestant. The question was 

"In IQ, what does Q stand for?"

The correct answer of course was 'quotient'. The lady got it right immediately. But she pronounced the word as co-shunt. Amitabh Bachchan also pronounced it like that. And she got the answer right. However, that is the wrong way to pronounce the word. The correct way is 

kwo-shunt or क्वोशंट. The vowel sound in shunt is that of a schwa i.e. a short unaccented syllable. 

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