VARIANT PRONUNCIATIONS

The presence of variant pronunciations indicates that not all educated speakers pronounce words the same way. A second-place variant is not to be regarded as less acceptable than the pronunciation that is given first. It may, in fact, be used by as many educated speakers as the first variant, but the requirements of written English make one precede the other:

Main Entry: apri.cot
Pronunciation: 'a-pr&-"kät, 'A-

Main Entry: for.eign
Pronunciation: 'for-&n, 'fär-

A variant that is appreciably less common than the preceding variant is preceded by the word also:

Main Entry: ¹al.loy
Pronunciation: 'a-"loi also &-'loi

A variant preceded by sometimes is even less common, though it does occur in educated speech:

Main Entry: in.vei.gle
Pronunciation: in-'vA-g&l sometimes -'vE-

Sometimes a regional label precedes a variant:

Main Entry: ¹great
Pronunciation: 'grAt, Southern also 'gre(&)t

The label dialect precedes a variant that is noteworthy or common in a dialect or dialects of American English but that is not considered to be a standard pronunciation:

Main Entry: ask
Pronunciation: 'ask, 'a'sk; dialect 'aks

The symbol \÷\ is placed before a pronunciation variant that occurs in educated speech but that is considered by some to be unacceptable:

Main Entry: cu.po.la
Pronunciation: 'kyü-p&-l&, ÷-"lO

This symbol refers only to the immediately following variant and not to subsequent variants separated from it by a comma or a semicolon.

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