Aunt, adult, pajamas: Why can't we agree how to pronounce common words?

Call it the problem of toilet-paper-roll words

Pajamas
(Image credit: (Thinkstock))

How do you pronounce each of the following words? And is there another correct way to pronounce them?

adult, address, almond, amen, arctic, aunt, banal, Caribbean, diabetes, either, envelope, harassment, herb, homage, mayonnaise, neither, niche, nuclear, pajama, potato, produce (as in produce department), schedule, tomato, Uranus

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James Harbeck

James Harbeck is a professional word taster and sentence sommelier (an editor trained in linguistics). He is the author of the blog Sesquiotica and the book Songs of Love and Grammar.