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I heard two different pronunciations for both gibberish and direction.

I heard the di in direction uttered as both the di /daɪ/ in die and as the di /dɪ/ in did.

I have also heard the g in gibberish pronounced like the G /g/ in Greece and the J /dʒ/ in Jesus.

So what should the correct pronunciation be each of the word? Pronunciation of both of them is highly disputed.

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    These are two unrelated questions, so they should probably be asked separately.
    – Kit Z. Fox
    Feb 8, 2013 at 15:01
  • @Kit, Did not want to make two questions out of it; then both of them would produce typical tiny answers.
    – Mistu4u
    Feb 8, 2013 at 15:11
  • Downvoters please comment and let me know if anything is wrong.
    – Mistu4u
    Feb 8, 2013 at 16:39
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    @Mistu4u I didn't downvote, but I think Kit has a good point. What are the odds that someone will want to find out the answers to both of these questions at the same time? Fairly slim, I'd say.
    – user230
    Feb 15, 2013 at 5:37
  • @snailplane, Fair enough. But like I said before I do not see a good point of making two questions out of it. I added these two words at a time because I thought both of these words pronunciations are highly controversial. That's why. Anyways I have nothing to do if people want to down-vote.
    – Mistu4u
    Feb 15, 2013 at 5:54

3 Answers 3

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I've never heard gibberish pronounced with a hard g, but maybe I just need to travel more. As Barrie showed in his answer, both pronunciations are listed in the OED. As for the direction dichotomy, you see that sort of variant in English quite often. Pronunciation variations fall into a few different categories, such as:

  • where the vowel of a word can be pronounced one of at least two ways, as in process
  • where the accented syllable of a word shifts, as in redress
  • where the word is pronounced differently depending the word's part of speech, as in record

(Those examples only cover officially recognized pronunciation differences, and don't account for local accents and dialects, or international differences.)

There's even an English idiom that goes:

You say tomato, I say tomato

which looks oddly nonsensical, unless you spell it phonetically:

You say təmātō, I say təmätō

The saying essentially means, "I guess we see this matter differently, but that doesn't mean one of us has to be wrong."

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The Oxford English Dictionary shows both /ˈdʒɪbərɪʃ/ and /ˈɡɪbərɪʃ/ for gibberish. That is, the initial consonant is found both as the ‘j’ in Jim and as the ‘g’ in gas. As a speaker of British English, I always pronounce it the first way.

Direction is also given with two pronunciations for the first syllable: /dɪˈrɛkʃən/ and /daɪ-/. That is, as the vowel sound in ‘did’ and as the vowel sound in ‘die’. I probably pronounce it most of the time the second way. Dairy is pronounced /ˈdɛərɪ/, rhyming with fairy. Deify is pronounced /ˈdiːɪfaɪ/, the first two syllables rhyming with ‘see if’. Have you really heard the first syllable of direction pronounced in either of those ways?

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  • Yes, did and die are fair enough. They make a lot more sense than my current examples.I would change my examples accordingly.
    – Mistu4u
    Feb 8, 2013 at 8:39
  • I pronounce deify /ˈdeɪɪfaɪ/ (day-i-fy, the IPA looks odd with two ɪ in it like that). I expect that's yet more influence from my Latin classes coming out.
    – Andrew Leach
    Feb 8, 2013 at 8:57
  • @Andrew Leach. I think I do too, but was merely reporting the pronunciation given in the OED. In any case, neither seems a likely way to pronounce the first syllable of 'direction.
    – Barrie England
    Feb 8, 2013 at 9:01
  • I always pronounce it the first way, and I'm a speaker of American English. Has the latter pronunciation died out, I wonder?
    – user230
    Feb 15, 2013 at 5:32
  • @snailplane. So do I, and I don't recall ever hearing /ˈɡɪbərɪʃ/.
    – Barrie England
    Feb 15, 2013 at 8:03
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English pronunciation isn't standard around the world. It isn't even standard in a given region. There are always native speakers (and non-native speakers) who have idiosyncratic pronunciations. The Macmillan online says "gibberish" is pronounced with initial [dz] as in "jet". It gives two pronunciations for "direction". But this is a question that can be answered by looking at a good dictionary.

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