Re: USAGE: varying pronunciation of "kilo"

Tristan McLeay scripsit:

> [K]ilometre typically IME has the stress on the second
> syllable i.e. as /k@lOm@t@/. But this might not be unexpected to you,
> apparently it's originally an Americanism, or so complaints from the 70s
> or 80s imply.
Yes, the standard pronunciation of "kilometer" in the U.S. has stress
on the second syllable.  The U.S. military, who are practically the only
group in the country to talk of kilometers informally, call them "klicks";
this term may also be used in Canada.

> > the  <i> seems to
> > automatically switch from /I/ to /i/.
Words ending in vowel letters are usually recent borrowings and often
keep their foreign phonology:  "piano", e.g., although [pAi&n@] was
not unheard-of in the 19th-early 20th centuries.

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