How to pronounce duplicacy?

I was wondering what’s the correct pronunciation of “duplicacy” and since this off-topic question triggered some answers, I guess it’s time to move those into a topic of their own.

So here we go. This was my suggestion:

Then Gilbert replied:

This is how it sounded in my head (Note: I’m English speaking Australian)

  1. Go to following site Free Text to Speech Online with Natural Voices
  2. Type in “Duplicacy” into text box area
  3. Select “English (UK) - Rachel”
  4. Select “Speed -2”
  5. Press play

Spend the next 2 hours testing different voices and wasting your time! :slight_smile:

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…that is, with a light stress on the “dup”.

That’s how I was pronouncing it in my head too (FWIW I’m a native UK English speaker).

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Interesting.

Looking at these pronunciations in American English:

“duplicate” -> “d(j)upləˌkeɪt”
“duplicity” -> “d(j)uˈplɪsədi”
“duplication” -> “ˌd(j)upləˈkeɪʃ(ə)n”
“efficacy” -> “E ˈɛfəkəsi”
“advocacy” -> “ædvəkəsi”
“intricacy” -> "ˈɪntrəkəsi "

it follows, fairly unambigously, that “duplicacy” should be pronounced “d(j)uˈplɪkəsi” doesn’t it?
FWIF macOS text-to-speech voice Alex pronounces it just like that.

3 Likes

I am not English speaking, and in my view, this word (“duplicacy”) seems Italian))

I agree with @saspus that

“duplicity” -> “d(j)uˈplɪsədi”

requires Duplicacy to be spoken as “d(j)uˈplɪkəsi"; that is, with the emphasis on pli. Duplicity
has a structure very similar to Duplicacy; in fact it’s the most similar word in @saspus’s list with only two consecutive letters near the end changed.

Perhaps it is fortunate that we seldom need to speak Duplicacy out loud.

I am a native American English speaker, since about 1956.

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Gotta ask… I noticed my wife and I both say this differently.
Do we say:

  1. doo - plick - AH - see

  2. doo- plah - CAH - see

  3. doo- PLIH - cah - see

  4. other?

Take a look:

That’s great! :wink: I think we need a poll. :wink:

No poll is needed:

.

Sadly, I cannot read the phonetics…

But you know how the words left of the phonetics are pronounced?

This apparently means my wife was correct…

Doo-PLIH-cah-see