Three years ago, I wrote a short essay for NPR’s Web site about the pronunciation of Iraq. Each of the two syllables offers choices. The second can rhyme with track or flock. The first can have a long i (to rhyme with eye); a short one, as in mirror; or it can rhyme with see. (In my piece, for the sake of simplicity, I put the second and third first-syllable options in a single category; I’m pleased to see that a subsequent academic study of the issue has followed suit. I will also note, while in parenthesis, that in this post I render pronunciation in layman’s, rather than linguist’s, terms so that the Lingua Franca readers, largely generalists, will comprehend.)
That yields four ways to pronounce Iraq. My 2009 observations? First of all, no one says Eye-rahk. Of the other possibilities, I wrote that Eye-rack is “the pronunciation of choice for members of U.S. military below the…