Tentacle, barnacle, manacle: all words that are stressed on the first syllable.
But now, in a Today programme interview on BBC Radio 4, our erstwhile Foreign Secretary, brother of the current leader of Her Majesty’s loyal opposition, has brought us a new one in all seriousness: debacle /ˈdebəkl/. He was referring to the current situation in the eurozone , and it took me a few seconds to decipher what he was actually saying.
Can David Miliband really have gone through his life never having heard this word pronounced?
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