ABSTRACT
The BBC receives many complaints about the pronunciation of controversy. Listeners object to announcers who stress the second syllable, insisting that the word should be pronounced with the strongest stress on the first syllable. The same listeners, however, would also criticise the stressing of the first syllable in laboratory, although both words had first-syllable stress in Britain until the 1930s. It would thus appear that the British speakers who say:
con'troversy
are following the same rule that shifted:
'laboratory
to:
la'boratory
in the UK. See: ‘chestnuts’, purist.
