Talk:disingenuous

The m-w.com pronunciation gives this as five syllables. But colloquially, I've never heard this pronounced any way other than [diss-enn-gene-yus]. And the phonetic spellings seem to all be vehemently proscribed as classic misspellings. So, how is this really pronounced? --Connel MacKenzie 17:23, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

It's always been 5 syllable to me, and that's the way I've always heard it. It's given that way also on the OED. Are you maybe confusing ingenuous with ingenious (which maybe in some accents could be /in-gene-yus/)? Widsith 21:58, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Looking more closely at the definition we give, I'm not sure that is the word I'm looking for. That is, the word, as I understood it and have heard it used, means something more like "being suggestive of an odd coincidence" not such an outright accusation of deception. So, in fact I may be thinking of a completely different word. While 'ingenuous' and 'ingenious' are spelled similarly, 'ingenious' is not proscribed the way 'disingenious' is. As far as spelling vs. pronunciation goes, I am fairly sure that I've never heard the pronunciation as 'disingenuous' but only as 'disingenius' (which, according to my spell-checker here, is {notaword}.) While 'ingenious' (gah - why do I keep trying to spell that as 'ingenius' now) can only be used for rare celebratory statements or truly spectacular breakthroughs, 'disingenious' seems to be a common expression. Prior to listening to it here, m-w.com and ahd, I do not recall ever hearing the five syllable form. --Connel MacKenzie 17:59, 11 February 2008 (UTC)