“…it is usually a fool’s mission to blame people for how they pronounce words.”

“I don’t blame all the people who say Eye-rack and Eye-ran, first, because it is usually a fool’s mission to blame people for how they pronounce words. In this case as in others, the “wrong” way is the only way many of them have ever heard. The military aspect is itself a fascinating and potent phenomenon. As the authors of the more recent American Speech article observe, this pronunciation has somehow become “the military’s linguistic norm…. A current or former member of the U.S. military would adopt these variants not as a matter of signaling political attitude, but as a reflection of his experience as a member of this particular speech community.”

— Ben Yagoda on being “Eye-rate About Eye-ran”. (Thanks, Liora!)