striped

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On March 15, Wilson  Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM wrote:

”OED Online: 

”striped, _adj._Pronunciation:  /straIpt/

”This monosyllabic pronunciation is the only one sanctioned by the OED
Online, apparently, and this is also the only pronunciation found in
the 2nd ed.

”Absolutely *amazing*!

”I've used the dissyllabic pronunciation, [straIpId] all of my life,
with no idea that it was, at best, according to Websters's New World
and to Merriam-Webster, only an alternative pronunciation and one
peculiar to only a few regional U.S. dialects, at that.

”The other day, my wife showed me a new blouse that she described as
[straIpt], when any fool could see that it was, in fact, [straIpId],
motivating me to check this out.

”And it's taken me only a quarter-century to become aware of this discrepancy.

”Of course, [straIpt] is the only possible form of the PPP of the verb,
_stripe_, even for me.”

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And on March 25 Douglas G. Wilson douglas at NB.NET wrote: 

“MW3 shows both, without remark. Both seem natural to me; I think I
probably use both myself. I'll take a look in DARE as soon as I get that
fifth volume.”

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I find it absolutely *amazing* that the two-syllable pronunciation is apparently unfamiliar to lots of people. I grew up in working-class Des Moines in the 1950s-60s, and the disyllabic pronunciation is the only one I heard. It’s the one I still use. The only monosyllabic pronunciation for “striped” I recall from my Iowa youth was in the phrase “striped bass.” For some reason, the fish always got the one-syllable “striped.”

My husband, a native New Yorker, was the first person who ever questioned my pronunciation. I made some comment about his “strip-ed shirt” and he went ballistic. But I thought that was just a weird New York thing (like his inability to differentiate “bring” and “take”).  

I would no more pronounce “striped” as one syllable than I would “stupid” (as stoopt).

Pat O’Conner 

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