A sixth pronunciation for the letter "x".

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NewTime
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21 Apr 2018, 8:27 pm

Apparently a pharmaceutical company is guilty of having created a sixth pronunciation for the letter "x".

Quote:
"aylexithymea" for "alexithymia"
This unusual scientific word is unclear as to pronunciation, but need not be.
The first problem is that the A before a single consonant at the start of the word will be seen by many readers as representing a schwa, as in "around", "about", and "apostrophe". That's not the sound here, however, which is a long-A. We could write that as AI, as in "staid", or AY, as in "plaything". Before an L, as here, however, AI would be seen as having the flat-A sound in "fail", "rail", and "airmail", so AY is the better choice.

The X is probably not a problem, even tho X can represent five different sounds (KS as in "nexus", GZ as in "exist", KSH as in "luxury", GZH as in "luxurious", and Z as in "xylem").* The default that most people will see for an X in a location like this is KS, which is correct, so we can leave it as-is.

TH could also be pronounced in more than one way, voiced, as in "this", and unvoiced (or voiceless), as in "thing". A rare reader might see the word "thy" within today's word, and think the proper sound is voiced. But again, the default that most people will see, voiceless, is correct, so we don't need even to try to clarify that sound, which is good, given that there is no way to do that in traditional spelling!
The last issue is the IA at the end of this long word. IA can be pronounced in more than one way too, within a word as long-I plus long-A ("hiatus"), or long-I plus short-A ("diameter"), or long-I plus schwa ("defiance"). At the end of a word, IA can be pronounced as long-E plus schwa ("nutria"), or the consonant Y plus schwa ("California") and even as long-I plus schwa (as in the old-fashioned pronunciation of the female name "Maria" and the term "Black Maria" for a paddy wagon. That spelling for that sound at the end of a word has been changed to IAH (except in "Black Maria"), as in the given name Mariah and the ordinary noun "pariah". (Now, do you see the need for spelling reform?)
Here, the sound is long-E plus schwa, which is more clearly written EA.
Putting this all together, we get: "aylexithymea".
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* Dictionary.com: "Psychiatry. difficulty in experiencing, expressing, and describing emotional responses."

* A pharmaceutical company has recently created a SIXTH pronunciation for X, in the marketing name of a new drug, "Farxiga", which is supposed to be pronounced with an S-sound! That is atrocious, but English does not have any authoritative body to ban such disgraceful misspellings.