My friend says it the second way and it irritates me to no end. He probably heard some ass on NPR or IPR or whatever it's called now say it that way.

So he puts the emphasis on the fourth syllable? Not only is that pretentious, I don't even think that's correct.

'documentree'
emphasis on final syllable.
my friend thinks i'm insane; i've just said "documentary" out loud about ten times.
does anyone else find it hard to work out a pronouncaiation when saying words 'cold'? i.e not in a sentence? i think it gets distorted, so, in fact, my above 'documentree' is probably utter bollocks...

Macho Man Angry Dragon wrote:How do you pronounce it?

the correct pronounciation is, of course, [ iht ].

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SHAZAM!

i would have to go with

doc-u-MEN-uh-ree

with pretty much no discernable T sound in it. or if there is a T sound, it's actually a D sound. but don't take any of my pronounciation seriously. i don't say hundred, i say hunnert. though i'm capable of speaking properly, i much prefer to speak colloquially. it comes all natural-like. and speaking properly often sounds so obnoxious to me. like how i say "uh-NUFF". i work with a guy who very clearly pronounces it "e-NUFF". it sounds very, very wrong. though it's, i expect, proper.

my favorite was my thoroughly italian-american ex-gf from providence, RI. she said words like "EN-uh-thin". that's the most badass pronounciation of "anything" i've ever heard.

My drummer pronounces the word "interesting" just like Neil Young apparently does: in-nuh-rest-in. It cracks me up every time.

Oh, and my momma's from south Texas, so I can elicit quizzical looks from friends / bandmates / coworkers at will by replacing my Southern California accent with hers, and saying things like, "Two-double-naught-four" when I mean "Two-thousand and four", "cold as a titch's witty" to describe temperature and "yer a'coughin', I'm a casket" when somebody coughs.

So I'm used to different accents, right, but the pronunciation of documentary in which the fourth syllable is accented is a bit much for me.

I can live with most tongues as long as you’re not unintentionally using words that don’t exist like “disorientatedâ€

i pronounce it

doc-you-MEN-tree

It's doc-you-ment-uh-ree. Are all of youse guys from the New England area? Learm how to speak goddammit.