A handy resource. Word.

When you live by words, you sometimes encounter them just as text and not in their "natural" state, that is, hearing them spoken. This can lead to some challenging, amusing, or embarrassing situations.

Here in New Mexico, it is always worth while tuning in to hear TV reporters new to the area try to handle the Spanish street and town names. (I sometimes think that veteran newscasters arrange for these tongue-twisters-for-Easterners stories as a sadistic form of hazing.) Hearing these newbies pronounce "Menaul" as "Manuel" and "Juan Tabo" as "Ju-ann Ta-bow" is a real hoot.

But most languages are not audio-visually isomorphic, that is, the way they are spelled is not always an indication of how they are pronounced. So we will all get tripped up by pronunciation now and again.

My own doozy of an example was when I was recording a radio spot for the bookstore, an announcement of a new release. I do fine voice work, generally getting it in no more than three takes; I often practice "cold reads" (reading text without practicing) and usually the first take is quite acceptable. But in this instance I was paying more attention to the way the words looked than to how they sounded in my head, and it tripped me up.

The title had something to do with Provence. I read it as "province" (which Provence happens to be: a province in France). The radio tech, who was also a DJ, gave me a superior look (it was a classical station) and said snootily, "It's pronounced 'pruh-VAHNS'."

I laughed (the best way to deal with snootiness), but since he was right thanked him most sincerely. He had saved me some embarrassment. People love catching other people wrong on details -- had the piece gone out as the first take, the phones would have been ringing the next day at the store with customers gleefully pointing out our on-air faux pas.

It was a good lesson to learn. I try to be very careful with pronunciation, within the acceptable variants.

So it was with delight I was exposed to an online resource which I pass on to you now. It is the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, and not only does it do the usual definitions but if you click on the little red speaker icon next to the word, it pronounces it for you as well. Pretty damn handy.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/

Not every word seems to be available -- some call up a link to a free trial of a more complete M-W resource -- but most words you are likely to be unsure of are covered. I just checked out "faux pas" and it not only provided a clear pronunciation but the plural was available as well.

In a text-heavy world, it is nice to have this quick check available before you give your tongue free rein. Trust me. I learned it in Provence.