How do you say ‘Thanksgiving’? It may depend where you live: study
Give thanks for the good thangs.
Saying the word “Thanksgiving” may seem straightforward, but Turkey Day’s official name bears a different utterance depending on where you are in the US, according to a study by online language learning platform Preply.
“While there is no one correct way to say ‘Thanksgiving,’ there are regional differences which are consistent with other regional differences in pronunciation for other words,” Melissa Baese Berk, a linguistics professor at the University of Chicago, told the site, Newsweek reported.
Celebrants might pronounce the harvest holiday “THANKS-giving,” with an emphasis on the prefix, or like “Thanks-GIV-ing,” where the oomph is placed in the middle. Others kick the K and rattle off a “Happy Thangsgiving.”
Nearly half of the survey respondents pronounced the holiday “THANGSgiving” without the “k.” Marisha – stock.adobe.com
The “THANKSgiving”-leaning states were predominantly located in the South. Taras Vykhopen – stock.adobe.com
To determine how the pronunciation differs geographically, Preply surveyed 1,000 people across the US on how they say the name.
They also drew upon a Harvard study which reportedly found that 74% of Americans emphasized the “give” while just 16% stressed the “thanks,” The Mirror reported.
Preply found that the states that predominantly pronounced the holiday the latter way were Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.
“While there is no one correct way to say ‘Thanksgiving’, there are regional differences which are consistent with other regional differences in pronunciation for other words,” said Melissa Baese Berk (not pictured), a linguistics professor at the University of Chicago. soupstock – stock.adobe.com
Meanwhile, the rest of the country says “Thanksgiving” with the exclamation in the center.
Berk said that the general rule is that Southerners say “THANKSgiving” while Northerners say ‘thanksGIVing.’”
“This is consistent with an overall tendency which also manifests in cases like ‘UMbrella’ vs. ‘umBRELla,’” she said.
Coincidentally, there’s a tertiary pronunciation as well. The same survey also found that “48% of respondents pronounced the holiday as THANGS-giv-ing,” which experts attributed to a product of “modern dialect rounding off the harsh “k” sound,” per the release.
“The pronunciation of ‘THANGSgiving’ is also consistent with other trends in language production,” said Burke. “We often ‘reduce’ the pronunciation of words when we are speaking casually, and sometimes these pronunciations end up becoming the default pronunciation through language change.”
“The pronunciation of ‘THANGSgiving’ is also consistent with other trends in language production,” said Burke (not pictured). “We often ‘reduce’ the pronunciation of words when we are speaking casually, and sometimes these pronunciations end up becoming the default pronunciation through language change.” Prostock-studio – stock.adobe.com
However, she’s yet unsure if this is a flash in the pumpkin pie pan or a long-term lingual shift.
This year, people are likely to encounter different regional pronunciations of the word given that over 18 million Americans are taking to the sky this Turkey Day.
