With reference to the letter ‘English as she is pronounced’ by Joe Izzo (July 17), the one word which is most flagrantly abused is the word ‘festival’. This word is almost always pronounced ‘festivil’.It makes me wince every timeit’s uttered.

Even TV personalities and news readers are guilty of this. The right pronunciation is a very soft ‘a’, like in the word ‘natural’.

A little bit of practice is all it takes.

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