Why are people saying ‘in-FER-ence’ now?

[BrickBiscuit]

All my life it’s been ‘in-FER’ and ‘IN-fer-ence’. But ‘in-FER-ence’ seems to be taking over. I hear it especially in amateur podcasts. What’s going on?

In a shop I was laughed at for asking "may I have". Pedantically "can I have" means is it possible for me to have. "May I have" is asking someone if they will allow me to have.

I say 'can I get' too. I never used to til this past 10 years. I picked it up off my DC.

It’s the same pattern as reFER, reFERral, REFerence, and deFER, deFERral, DEFerence.

May, in the sense of ‘May I have?’ just isn’t commonly used in some areas. ‘May I have’ sounds just as out of place to some people as ‘Can I have’ or ‘Can I get’ does to others.

It’s really not nice that people laugh when others use an expression they’re not used to though.

Ooh! I have also noticed this but thought it was a specific case.

You’ll get me going on mischievous now! When did it become mischievious? Not an Americanism though, just mispronunciation.

No worries, I found it amusing. If I remember correctly, Tom Wolfe mocks the conditional language the English use to order food in a New York restaurant, as a kind of inverted snobbery that signals their (self perception of) cultural superiority.

I have heard ‘in-FER-ence’ on a well-published minor English author’s recent amateur YouTube channel, where they happen to use the word frequently because of context. They clearly stress the ‘FER’ every time. I have heard the same on other YouTube podcast-type videos. I don’t think I would notice it whenever pronounced correctly, as it would be so mundane. It is more surprising as that author is obviously well-read and well-spoken, and uses the language professionally.

Okay, thanks @BrickBiscuit.
I haven’t come across it myself, but I’ll watch out for it now.

@BatchCookBabe , it's like saying infer then adding the -ence, whereas the stress should be on the in.
cf. refer and reference.