One for the pedants: Impious

[AgentPidge]

I went to see Hamnet. There were (unsurprisingly) some quotes from Hamlet in the film, and one of them mentioned "impious stubbornness". Paul Mescal pronounced it like pious with -im at the beginning: im-PIE-us. But a tiny bell rang in my head, saying it should be IMP-ee-us. I mentioned it to the friend I was with - who happens to have taught Hamlet at A-level - and she said she'd say "im-PIE-us".
Next day, she sent me a screenshot from Cambridge dictionary backing her up, and mentioned a (robot-voiced) video on YouTube saying the same thing. But the first comment says it's incorrect - the correct way is IMP-ee-us. I looked in my old Chambers' and Collins dictionaries and they give IMP-ee-us as correct; one of them gives im-PIE-us as a N. American variant. Now this is not a word I've ever used, I don't think, and it's very likely that the 'correct' way has fallen out of use, but I'm interested in whether anyone was taught 'my' way at school. I also remember ignoble, also hardly used. TIA

Cambridge online dictionary = Uk pronunciation is of impious is imPIEous US pronunciation in imPEEous.

Agree.

The point is that the word (along with many others) is in a state of change.

I read it as IMP-ee-us

Not quite. The Cambridge US pronunciation has the emphasis on the IMP. So your imPEEus is a third option!

I agree with this and it's a hill I'd die on.

I've only ever heard it pronounced 'im-PIE-us' as the opposite of pious.

However, it was probably pronounced differently in Shakespeare's day; many words were, so I'm willing to accept 'im-PEE-us' in that context.

Yes, sorry I rather ballsed up my post. I realised after I'd written it but it was too late to edit.

I've only ever heard it as "im-PIE-us" too but I find the sonnet argument with the "of" compelling.

Of course Pious is "PIE-us" but there are other examples of the stressed syllable changing when a bit is added to the front, eg potent & impotent. Here maybe the word "impious" is so rarely heard out loud now that many of us have mainly come across it in books, and have just assumed it follows the PIE-ous stress (which seems a natural assumption to me) rather than ever learning that it is (was??) one of those that changes.

I heard Natalie Haynes in one of her "Stands up for the Classics" pronounce "pious" as "pee-us" and I wonder if anyone can tell me whether it was a clever joke and I'm just not in on the joke? It was about Aeneas, so maybe it's just a funny rhyming thing that classicists say, pee-us Aeneus.

Similarly, I once heard an American narrator pronounce the word "penchant" as "pen chant" - like the two separate words. It sounded so weird - surely most people pronounce it French style i.e. "ponshon"?

Funnily enough I remember looking this up. In my Oxford Reference Dictionary (1995), or possibly in DH's Chambers of similar vintage, it listed both pronunciations. However googling it now says the usual British way is along the French line.

I don't know if this is that language has moved on, or that the internet serves up a slightly simplified answer. My suspicion is the latter.

That was not the point of the post I quoted. It gave wrong information (since acknowledged) about a supposed change in pronunciation which was inaccurate, so I corrected it. Is there a problem?

@QwestSprout I'd be interested to see your correction. LABratory surprised me too but is the broader point you were making still valid?

This

Yes. I intended to use laboratory as an example of a word with the opposite stress pattern then accidentally smushed it together and it just came out wrong. It's the sort of error we like to pretend was on purpose to students when they notice it, but it was just chronic pain making my head mince.

But the point about unstable stress being an example of language evolution in real time is valid, it's one of my areas of study.

@QwestSprout thank you. That does sound interesting.

Now I am wondering why we say labORatory but also LAVatory. I guess if lavatory is an older word (Roman?) that would fit with your work.

You are 100% correct. Signed, a Massive (and Proud) Pedant x

IMP-ee-us here. Prefixes, suffixes and other variations on a word can absolutely change the stress and pronunciation between variants. Famous and infamous would be another example.

Im def impeeus as in " when obedience is so impious, revolt is a necessity" it doesn't scan otherwise!

It’s PEE

how about ‘victuals’? I was taught to say ‘vittles’

And ‘hotel’? It used to be the case that educated people would say, ‘we stayed at AN OTEL’ but I haven’t heard that for years now.

Imp-ee-us.

Absolutely correct.

IM PIE OUS (silent E )as you can behave IM PIE OUSLY (silent E) - it's an odd one but each to their own!

I just love the pronounciations and roots of words it's fascinating!

Apparently all these different pronunciations are correct, but some don't make sense. "IMpeeus", really? "Impious" is the opposite of "pious", which is pronounced "pie-us". So the "pie" has to stay - "im-PIE-us". As for where to put the accent, you'd never put the stress on "im" in "immoral" or "impossible", so why would you do it in "impious"?

RTFT... As has been stated multiple times, there are various examples of words where the pronunciation changes when a prefix is added, and the stress does go on the first syllable, such as famous/infamous, or potent/impotent.