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Most people do not pronounce the d in "Wednesday" but many times on the radio or TV I hear them pronounce the d slightly (so that everyone can hear it). Is this correct, either in American or British accents?

I'm also curious about "pizza". I know it's an Italian word but in English how should it be pronounced? Some people add an extra t in the middle but someone pronounce it as it's written.

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    You can go to www.forvo.com to listen to recordings of people from all over the world pronouncing different words.
    – Dangph
    Commented Jul 11, 2014 at 1:33

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Wednesday - I've always remembered how to spell this by saying WED NES DAY or "WEDDING'S DAY", but it's primarily pronounced wenz day or wenz dee. I searched several references, and found only a small set of people who include the "wed" sound, saying "wednz day":

Pizza Most Americans pronounce it like "Pete's a good guy" or technically:

Some people might say pee zza because that's how it looks or their parents and friends said it or they think it sounds Italian (it doesn't).

When it comes to radio shows, announcers are trained to enunciate, over-pronounce, or stress words in special ways that emphasize clarity over absolute correctness; it might not even be precisely the correct pronunciation. So if you listen to radio announcers, you can sometimes hear non-typical pronunciations.

Information on pronunciation of minestrone has been moved here: How do you pronounce, "minestrone"?

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    +1 for "When it comes to radio shows, announcers are trained to enunciate, over-pronounce, or stress words in special ways that emphasize clarity over absolute correctness; it might not even be precisely the correct pronunciation. So if you listen to radio announcers, you can sometimes hear non-typical pronunciations."
    – learner
    Commented May 2, 2014 at 10:25
  • I can only speak from personal experience about "wednz day" (I'm English), but I'm considered mildly eccentric by friends and colleagues for pronouncing it that way. I'm fine with that.
    – ClickRick
    Commented Jul 11, 2014 at 0:47
  • I didn't know that wenz dee was a possibility. I'll have to start listening for that. Does the -dee apply to other days of the week?
    – user6951
    Commented Jul 11, 2014 at 9:29
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    Everything is correct here except your IPA transcriptions. You want the /ɛ/ phoneme for the first vowel, in AmE at least. @user6951, yes, the -i pronunciation is optional for all days of the week, although it sounds a bit dated to me.
    – Sorcha NicEalair
    Commented Feb 8, 2017 at 16:01
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In re: "Pizza"

American English: "PEET-za". Always.

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I have always pronounced Pizza and Wednesday as /pitsə/ and /wendzde/ with /ts/ and /dz/ representing the affricate sounds. The pizza pronunciation is normal, but the Wednesday pronunciation probably isn't. The differences probably are 1) using an alveolar affricate instead of as the alveolar sibilant 2) pronouncing the long a sound as a pure /e/ instead of the diphthong /eɪ/

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  • I agree with the ndzd consonant cluster and was glad someone else had it too!
    – hunter
    Commented Jun 30, 2016 at 16:38
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Pizza: /ˈpiːtsə/ ____ Wednesday:/ˈwenzdeɪ/ and /ˈwenzdi/

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