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Although it may be pronounced either "VEE-ah" or "VIE-ah", which do you think is preferable?

My hunch is that if it occurs in a Latin phrase, such as via dolorosa or via media it should be given its Latin (?) pronunciation "VEE-ah" ; but if it occurs in an ordinary English context, like, "a file sent via e-mail" it should be given its English (?) pronunciation "VIE-ah."

Is this reasonable? Which do you use?

Always used "VEE-ah". "VIE-ah" sounds awkward and takes more effort to pronounce. And if the word is Latin to begin with...

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Always used "VEE-ah". "VIE-ah" sounds awkward and takes more effort to pronounce. And if the word is Latin to begin with...

Yes but Americans (assuming your location and your nationality are the same thing) ipso facto, don't speak (or spell) properly.

You probably also say "the InAHnet" and "I'm not inAHrested" and "she'll be comin' round the moun-EN when she comes Yee-Haw!".

I much prefer the Irish brogue; the Scottish burr; the Australian slur, or even my own Lithuanian accent, to the jarring American "rureely inAHRresting InAHnet site " and "how fayest is yeeor karrrrr?"

The glottal stop is the reason I cannot listen to CNN, the only English-language television channel here.

I'm staying with my hunch.

P.S.

And when it comes to spelling, the man who cannot see that British English is the best looking as well as the sufficient and sensible form (encyclopaedia; programme; colour; manoeuvre; dialogue; faeces; cheque; foetus; queue; grey; and so on) is aesthetically and mentally deficient.

Perhaps this attitude is best explained by your growing up with the dulcet tones of job tvoju mat'! ringing in your ears. Perhaps not.

this thread is an example of someone asking a question in the form of foisting his previously formed opinion on the unwashed masses; i.e., all of y'all.

How does that IGNORE button thing work, again?

I use both. If I was planning to visit the veeyah dolorosa I would research it viyah the internet.
But then Canadians have always been mugwumps about such things. Colour is correct with or without the u, we take checks, cash or cheques and center ends whichever way it wants to.

we take checks, cash or cheques

Yes you do, and the exchange rate is rather attractive, as well.

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I use both. If I was planning to visit the veeyah dolorosa I would research it viyah the internet.

That's my hunch. VEE-ah dolorosa. VIE-ah email.

But, as for my other remarks, I cannot be blamed for the fact that the American accent raises my hackles. It's not so much the accent itself as its pervasiveness vie-ah cultural exportation.

Americans themselves used to subdue their grating stress on the letter R; hence the softening of the R into a soft Anglophonic accent in 1950s movies. Although, curiously, it is said Milton pronounced the R like an American would today.

Consider this titbit from The Dictionary of Literary Anecdotes:

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Since Roman times, R has been thought of as the "dog's letter" or the snarling letter because its sound resembles the snarling of a dog--r-r-r-r. Ben Jonson in his English Grammar Made for the Benefit of all Strangers (1636) put it this way:

"R is the dog's letter, and hurreth in the sound; the tongue striking the inner palate, with a trembling about the teeth."

Shakespeare has Juliet's nurse in Romeo and Juliet call R the dog-name, when she tells Romeo that his name and rosemary, an herb associated with weddings, both begin with an R. In parts of the United States, especially the Midwest, R is still pronounced as the dog letter, while in other regions, particularly parts of New England and the South, it is pronounced as "ah".

Milton is probably the most famous example of a literary light who used the dog letter.

"He pronounced the letter r very hard," Aubrey tells us, adding Dryden's comment on the subject "literia canina, the dog letter, a certain sign of satirical wit."

In fact, Milton's tendency to be satirical and sarcastic in conversation was connected by some of his friends with his "peculiarity of voice and pronunciation."

But then look at Eliot. He took a plum in his mouth within a few years of being in England (just listen to the HarperCollins Audio recording of The Waste Land, read by the author).

There are three or four different ways of pronouncing R. Enough different that they barely deserve the same letter to represent them. Five, if you count the Brazilian Portuguese version as in Rio de Janeiro.