larynx.
“Larynx” /LAR-ingks/ is sometimes, through metathesis, mispronounced /LAR-uh-niks/ or /LAHR-niks/. From the latter mispronunciation comes the inevitable misspelling — e.g.:
o “[Ken] Raabe [a puppeteer] uses an object called a swazzle, a kind of small artificial larnyx [read ‘larynx’] placed at the back of his throat, to make the traditional shrill, raspy voice of Punch.” Nancy Maes, “Clowns at Custer’s Last Stand,” Chicago Trib., 15 June 2001, at 35.
o “[Bob] Schwartz rarely takes his eyes (or his larnyx [read ‘larynx’]) off New Mexico.” Jeff Commings, “Rush, Meet Bob,” Albuquerque Trib., 26 Apr. 2002, at C3.
For information about the Language-Change Index click here.
——————–
Quotation of the Day: “The Saxon or German tongue is the ground-work upon which our language is founded, the mighty stream of forraign words that hath since Chaucer’s time broke in upon it having not yet wash’t away the root: onely it lies somewhat obscur’d, and overshadow’d like a Rock, or Fountain overgrown with bushes.” Edward Phillips, Preface, The New World of English Words (1658).
====================
