This morning, I heard some sort of bigwig on television use the word herculean. She pronounced it hair-KYEW-lee-un, which I had never heard before. I say her-kyew-LEE-un. What do you all say?

Maybe she was talking about Poirot?

Dear Jackie: Webster 1913 agrees with you.

her-KYEW-lee-uhn here.

I've always (on the rare occasions I've used the word) accented the second syllable, probably because that's the way I heard it pronounced (and there might have been a little Poirot carryover).

I don't think I've ever uttered this word. But when I've read it, my mind heard her-KYEW-lee-un. FWIW.

One of the reasons I thought of the little Belgian after reading Jackie's original post was that the lady she heard not only stressed the KEWL, but pronounced the first syllable as "hair". If I were to use the adjective in connexion with the famous fop, I would say it very similarly, although, of course, without voicing the "h".

FWIW, I pronounce it as you do, Jackie, with the emphasis on the LE. Can't say I've ever heard it pronounced the other way, nor did that pronunciation ever occur to me. Interesting.

I'm with NancyK and Jackie. I've only heard herculean pronounced with the third syllable stressed here in VA. The word is uncommonly used, but it does show its muscles occasionally.

Well, I'm sure glad I finally got somebody on my side--I was starting to worry!
show its muscles

<sniff>Both my posts were on your side, but clearly, I don't count.</sniff>

I used to pronouce it hercuLEEan, but then I heard it the other way, somewhen, and it seemed to flow off the tongue more nicely with the second syllable emphasis.
perhaps it's my predilection for 3/4 time rearing it's beauteous head once more...

The Greek I've always heard as HercuLEan. PBS used to announce that this weeks mystery movie would be "Hercule POYrow", drove me crazy and I bet he'd have hated it too.

...perhaps it's my predilection for 3/4 time rearing it's beauteous head once more...

Well, I'm with Jackie and if someone could hold a larger *predispository for the other 'true' time signature, that would be me (we'll compare notes someday)... so my guess is, etaoin, that you have an accent problem (all puns intended).

And which time signature would *that be, musick?

There are a few other Greek derivatives that have both -ean and -ian, like Aristotelian/ean and Epicurian/ean. In the case of Aristotle and Hercules there's a long -e- in the Greek name (Aristoteles).

Epicurean confused me for years (because he's Epikouros) until I learnt it contained an adjective-forming suffix -ai-, Latin -ae-. This is also used in Jacobean.

So I think consistency should make it unstressed -ian or stressed -ean. Personally I don't think I've seen the spelling herculian, so I'd say it with -Ean.

I automatically read "that other" prnounciation into Jenet's post when I saw it... not that there's anything wrong with that.

*********

The other other is just a single beat, evenly divided.