If certain words can be said to be the most wrongly pronounced in English, they may be those that end with ‘ally’. Especially in this part of the world, almost everyone keeps mispronouncing them due to overgeneralisation and, arguably, poor phonological training or orientation. Such fellows are usually guilty of two linguistic infractions: pronouncing a vowel that must be silent and giving the affected words more than the syllables they actually have.

By the way, can you quickly list 10 words that end with ‘ally’? Well, here are mine: artistically, technically, politically, economically, logically, musically, romantically, academically, logically and antagonistically. In each of them, the letter ‘a’ before ‘lly’ must not be pronounced. In other words, it should be swallowed, so that the ‘c’ (K) is pronounced alongside the ‘lly’ as a syllable.  This rule particularly applies when the ‘ally’ is preceded by a consonant sound. For instance, ‘artistically’ should be pronounced as artistiKLY, not artistiKA-LY.  Also, ‘romantically’ should come out as romantiKLY, not romantiKA-LY.

The implication is that each of the terms has less than the number of syllables many attribute to it when speaking. Consider the following:

Artistic — AR-TIS-TIC (Three syllables)

Artistically — AR-TIS-TI-CA-LLY (FIVE syllables: Wrong!)

Artistically — AR TIS-TI-KLY (Four syllables: Correct)

Logically — LO-GI-CA-LLY (Four syllables: Wrong!)

Logically — LO-GI-C’LLY (logiKLY) (Three syllables: Correct)

So, the following should also be pronounced thus:

Romantically — romantiKLY

Politically — politiKLY

Academically — academiKLY

Antagonistically — antagonistKLY

Why you should pronounce ‘principal’ and ‘principle’ the same way

We should also remember what happens to ‘a’ in many words that end with ‘al’. While those that end with ‘ally’ are usually adverbs, the one ending with ‘al’ are often nouns or adjectives. They include portal, mortal, principal, legal, educational, fatal and constitutional. The ‘a’ in them too is not to be articulated. When it is, it does not come out as the loud or high A, but a slight, low one. This means that ‘portal’ and  ‘lega’l  should not be pronounced as portAL and legAL. They should be like portL and leGL. So, because the vowel sounds in them (represented by ‘or’ and ‘e’) are long ones, the words should sound like: pawwTL and leeGL.

This is the reason ‘principal’ and ‘principle’ have the same pronunciation as the ‘a’ in the first is phonologically inactive:

Principal – princiPAL (Wrong)

princiPL (Correct

Principle – princiPL (Correct)