Why do people pronounce LONGEVITY as LON J EVITY?

Question

It should be LONG-EVITY Do they pronounce TONGUE as TON J UE?

MH
WRONG!!
Look at your dictionary again.
If it says otherwise, the person who compiled it didn`t know either, as well as you!

PS TO MH
I hope you live for a very LONJ time!!

CRANSTON
OOPS! I was just about to give you `best answer` then noticed the `childish` crack.
Have a thumbs down instead with my compliments and I hope you live a lonje lonjetime.
By the way, you were wrong. My dictionary says so. The G is hard.
If it was lon jevity it would be spelled that way, lonJevity!!

Answer 1

because they're stupid

Answer 2

Longevity Pronunciation

Answer 3

The soft 'G' : 'Lon-jevity' rather than hard 'G', 'long-evity', is a common MIS-pronounciation that seems to have caught on and presided since the digital age and increased media communication with the US. I prefer the correctness of the gutteral 'g' because it pertains to the root word long.
The pronunciation I really find irritating is one here: http://www.howjsay.com/mobile.php?word=longevity&x=17&y=24
a mix of both hard g followed by soft: 'Long-jevity' which adds a consonant that isn't even there!

Answer 4

Sorry, but I think you're fighting a losing battle here. It's pronounced lon-jev-ity, from the Latin longus meaning long and aevum meaning age. Whether or not it's to do with the following root word - aevum - I'm not sure, but the Latin pronunciation of that would be EE-vum, and so a soft G would be better.

I remember at school learning a poem about the pronunciation of English words. I can't remember the whole of the poem, but two lines always stuck in my head

"Moth is not a moth in mother
And broth is not a broth in brother"

A lot of pronunciation is entirely dependent on what letters follow each other. If you pronounced longevity as long-evity, in effect you are having to pronounce two words, as in order to get the hard G sound accurately, you would have to pause after the G (I am talking about precise pronunciation here, not general speech), whereas pronouncing it as lon-jevity, the sounds flow together more.

And out of interest, I didn't just assume that my pronunciation of lon-jevity was correct. I did check out the dictionary.com link, as well as all of my own dictionaries of various sizes - they all show lon-jev-ity as the correct pronunciation.

Edit: I was going to star your question, as I have a passing interest in grammar and pronunciation, but now you're just being childish.

Answer 5

The English language is a complicated maize of intricate vowel and consenant sounds that when combined do NOT always sound (are not always pronounced) as they are spelled.... many words that are spelled differently SOUND the same ---(site, cite, Right, write, pair, pare, etc)...yet have different meanings. Some words are even SPELLED the same yet pronounced differently---(present --meaning gift and present ---mean give TO or introduce) it's just the way it is....

May I ask a stupid question here? you are all arguing over a words pronouncation.... WHY? WHO CARES??? 95% of the English speaking population pronounce it LONG-JEVITY... so what... do you call that thing you blow your nose with a TISSUE or a KLEENEX??? Most people CALL it a KLEENEX when it is INFACT, a tissue---but WHO THE HELL CARES? Geez....

Answer 6

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
Why do people pronounce LONGEVITY as LON J EVITY?
It should be LONG-EVITY Do they pronounce TONGUE as TON J UE?

Answer 7

I pronounce it long-jevity myself, using both; can't say any fairer than that XD

But seriously; either should be acceptable, depending on convention: pronunciation's always been a tricky thing.

Normally a 'g' followed by an 'e' is pronounced like a 'j', though... so that might be why =3

Hope that helped =/

Answer 8

I agree that the correct pronunciation is 'long-evity', however the rules of the language seem to be so hardwired that 'GE' suggests a 'J' sound to many people. ('general', 'lounge' &c). It is probably a function of the way we read. We tend to see words we know as a whole and those that we are unfamiliar with are broken down into recognisable parts which relate to the other rules we have stored. It seems that 'GE' is stronger as a rule than 'NG', so the word gets read as 'lon-jevity'

Answer 9

G's can be soft or hard. A hard G would be G as in Gum, a soft G would be G as in Gel. English is my first language, so if I ever knew the reason, I forgotten it,LOL!!!!! I've studied other languages and English makes absolutely no sense. I can understand why so many immigrants have a hard time learning the language. It's ridiculous!!!!!!!!
P.S. Tongue is a hard G. If you're learning English good luck :)

Answer 10

This is an example of a shifted consonant. In the root, the "g" absolutely belongs with the "n", but *readers* have felt free to say the word differently. Such mis-saying may prevail.

Compare to "ephemeris", nigh-universally said as though the "ph" is an "f". It comes from ep and hemeris.

Since the 1950's there have been dictionaries that have listed dominant misusage as common usage. So, that's why, it's done because it's plausible and it's tolerated.

Answer 11

That's the beauty of the English language, catch em out, pronounce Featherstonehaugh as Fanshawe, that's another good one.