Try it in Italian

How do you pronounce the word ‘rationale’ (if you use it at all) ? I have long assumed that it's one of the very many words that we have adopted from the French language, so have said something like ‘rashen-arl’. But it isn’t a French word at all: it was borrowed into English in the seventeenth century from Latin, in which language it is the neuter singular of the adjective rationalis (which means ‘reasonable’ or ‘reasoned’). So Latin rationale means ‘something reasoned’.

But it looks like French; so for a long while a number of people, including me, ignorant of its derivation, have read it and pronounced it as if it were 'Franglais', ‘rash-en-arl’, with three syllables. In fact in true French it should have four syllables 'rass-y-on-arl'; but in Latin it had five syllables, rat-i-on-al-e.

I see that the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary of 1955 encourages us to pronounce that finale ‘e’ separately, to make the word sound something like ‘rash-i-on-ayl-i’. But the modern BBC English Dictionary, the newsreader’s bible, flows with the popular tide and recommends ‘rashen-arl’.

As for me, I think I’ll go Italian. After all, their language is directly derived from Latin. They have the word rationale in their vocabulary, and say something like ‘ratz-i-o-nar-lay’. The fact that it sounds as if it might be the popular name of an Irish Vermin Controller (Ratsy O’Narley) makes the word much more fun.

Try it in Italian