Need quick langauge help for work

[LadyShea]

I have heard the word excess pronounced two ways

EX-cess as well as ex-CESS

Are both correct? Is one more correct than the other?

[livius drusus]

I say ex-CESS but I doubt either pronunciation is more correct than the other. Maybe it's a British/American thing?

[LadyShea]

Hmmm, I have a customer who insists our professional voice acctress pronounced it wrong. She has done this work for 30 years, so I assume she knows what she is doing (she used ex-CESS, FYI).

Oh well, I will chalk it up to a preference and have it re-recorded.

Thanks, livius, I knew I could count on you :)

[ceptimus]

There are on-line audio clips of how the word should be pronounced here (http://www.allwords.com/word-excess.html)

The stress is on the second syllable in these examples.

[D. Scarlatti]

As an adjective, I'd say EX-cess; as a noun, ex-CESS, unless it was at the end of a sentence.

[LadyShea]

Thanks Ceptimus, even the dictionaries I looked at had both pronucniations listed.

I wonder if it's a regional and/or noun vs. other thing like address and route.

For example, I live at an AD-dress, but I ad-DRESS an envelope.



Oops, cross posted with D. Scarlatti.

Customer says it should be pronounced EX-cess an in "We had an EX-cess of this product...". I personally would use ex-CESS in that sentence.

[D. Scarlatti]

"We had an EX-cess of this product..."

That's just poor usage, in my opinion. But I hate business jargon generally.

[LadyShea]

"We had an EX-cess of this product..."

That's just poor usage, in my opinion. But I hate business jargon generally.

LOL, it's actually the name of his company, XS something. He used the sentence above as a demonstration for me to prove it was pronounced wrong by our voice actress...LOL

[D. Scarlatti]

XSJargon 'r' Us?

[viscousmemories]

I've always drunk to ex-CESS and wiped EX-cess glue from around the joint when building something.

[ChuckF]

^ What vm said. I use ex-CESS as a noun and EX-cess as an adjective.