Anyone who has lived in India (especially the Northern part) would have heard the first syllable of the above word being pronounced as 'come' and the third syllable being pronounced with a long vowel - 'tee-shun'. But you tend to ignore so many mis-pronunciations because these words have almost acquired a Hindi form (कम्पटीशन) and hence the transgressions are no longer as terrible.
However what surprised me (and triggered this post) was the launch of a book about marketing by a new age guru. The book is entitled 'Thorns to Competition'. Interestingly both the writers (otherwise well-educated and articulate) pronounce the word as 'come-petition'. That made me realise the rot is deeper than I thought. Interesting - people have the word in the title and don't know how to pronounce it! But anyways the word is correctly pronounced as com (as in dot com) pit-ission (to rhyme with mission). In Hindi it would read as कॉम्पिटिशन. So the first syllable vowel sound is long and the last syllable vowel sound is short - and not the other way around.
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