Comments on: Vice versa

By: yggdrassil

yggdrassil — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 16:53:10 +0000

Unless you’re going to use the actual Latin pronunciation, which would be “WEE-kay wear-SAAAH” (note the length of the final vowel), and risk coming off as pretentious, I’d say just pronouncing it like any other English word (i.e. pronouncing “vice” as the English word vice) is the best. If you make it “VAIS-uh VERS-uh” it sounds like you’re mispronouncing the Latin, as with if you used the Italian-like “cha.”

By: butt

butt — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 03:27:06 +0000

I disagree: how else would I appear smart to others?

By: bee

bee — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 15:29:27 +0000

In latin ‘C’ after ‘I’ is not pronounced as ‘K’ but like ‘TS’ – like in ” Veni, vidi, vici.” I think ‘vee-chee’ is modern Italian pronunciation. Personal opinion: if you are using Latin- say it in Latin, otherwise just say – other way around.

By: MaryLou

MaryLou — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 20:34:36 +0000

As to Latin pronunciation, in the phrase, “Veni, vidi, vici,” the word “vici” is pronounced “vee-chee.” So it would seem that the Latin pronunciation for “vice versa” would be “vee-chay vehr-sah.” But as for me? I will continue to pronounce it as “vais vehr-sah” or I will find another appropriate phrase.

By: Karma

Karma — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 00:53:23 +0000

What happened to proper Latin pronunciation? Shouldn’t it be “WEE-KAY WEAR-SUH”?

By: Dan

Dan — Thu, 13 May 2010 21:50:26 +0000

@Lauren Interesting, I didn’t know that.

By: Lauren

Lauren — Thu, 13 May 2010 21:40:09 +0000

Technically, it’s Latin so the C would be a K -
Veekeh Versa

By: dan

dan — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 17:41:52 +0000

The pronunciation of route actually makes sense as rowt, even though I used to pronounce it as root, so I’ve switched.

By: DaveH

DaveH — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 16:59:22 +0000

The four-syllable pronunciation seems to me like one of those popular mispronuciations that becomes accepted by sheer volume of usage, not for any linguistic reason (although I don’t know about its original Latin roots). My guess is that people just like the sing-songy-ness of vi-suh ver-suh, and so it gets used and passed along to others, and then someone puts it in a dictionary or something, but to take the words at their face value, how many of us pronounce “vice” as vi-suh?

I think I’ve honestly never considered this a pronunciation quandry, and maybe heard people use it, but assumed they were just being silly. But some pronunciation questions endure: ahnt/ant as you mentioned, and I took ribbing in Utah for root/rowt (like Route 66).

By: Ryan Byrd

Ryan Byrd — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 21:42:02 +0000

Hey look! you’re an English nerd too. that’s cool. So cool that I just added you to my links page: http://www.ryanbyrd.net/mylinks.php

Here are some of my English language posts: http://www.ryanbyrd.net/rambleon/?cat=5

Ryan