#1001 Rixy Words

Lately I’ve been hearing a lot of misuse of certain words. Maybe it’s a regional accent thing. After all, nobody says wor-chest-ter-shire. They say woostershur.
We abbreviate the word we pronounce as Missus “Mrs.” Does that mean it should be misters? Did it originally imply ownership and also have an apostrophe? It’s the mister’s wife—The mister’s—The missus.
The three words I’m having problems with each contain X. Or rather, the way people are mispronouncing them have an X, although the words really don’t.
The first word is slowly on the way to correction. It is espresso. Not “ex”-presso. Only a few outlying cultural pockets now persist in the ex-presso pronunciation.
It was an honest error. Folks unfamiliar with the Italian original and steeped in the express train culture of America made the leap onto to the “expresso” rails. We also felt like an express train when we drank it, and were far more expressive when we felt its energetic effects, etc.
That’s the next word, by the way. Well, actually, two words. We abbreviate it as one with the letters e-t-c-. But it’s spelled out as two. Et cetera. Notice how I enunciate it. Et-cet-tera. It’s from the Latin “et” for “and” and ceteri for “the others”. And the others.
Here’s a little bit of inside knowledge just you and I can share. Next time you hear some pompous pundit proclaiming “and et cetera” he’s actually redundantly saying “and and the others”.
In any event, it is not ex-cetera. There is no ex in et cetera. Unless “the others” in the phrase are your wives and you’re divorcing them. Then they are ex-cetera.
The last little special word is asterisk. Aster-risk. Not asterix. Asterix are for kids. Kids that haven’t got all their enunciations in order. The true word is asterisk. Meaning little star.
Remember, risk not rix. We don’t say he’s taking a rix. We don’t say his chances of being in a good mood are rixy if he doesn’t listen to Roxy...
Lesson over.
Tomorrow we’ll discuss the words pretentious and pedantic.
America, ya gotta love it.