"adVERsary"?

[Orin Hargraves]

>
>I had the following question from someone I know at Microsoft. I've
>never heard the "adVERsary" pron, and the OED gives only a version
>with first-syllable stress. Is this simply a mistake, or what?
>
>Geoff Nunberg . . .


ODE2 (the recently published update to NODE) gives adVERsary as a possible
adjectival prons (when the word is used to mean adversarial), but it gives
ADversary as the only noun prons. Perhaps this antepenult stress is slippage
from other Brit prons like conTROVersy. I don't recall that I've heard
adVERsary but it wouldn't seem jarring coming from an RP speaker.

Orin Hargraves