How do you pronounce error? I found a short discussion of it here from 2008 where some said that it is similar to mirror for them, which is pronounced with 2 syllables. I pronounce both mirror and error with one syllable.

I ask because recently I was at a conference, and the speaker, from the East, pronounced error close to air-or, definitely with 2 syllables.

How do you pronounce it?

Two syllables: /'ɛɹɚ/ with the first vowel as in pet and the second one as the second one in sofa. I believe that is standard for General American.

Well, we talk about medical errors a lot in my field, and this was the first I've heard such a stress on two syllables, particularly the last. Sometimes it's hard to write about pronunciations, I believe (even when using IPA), because of the nuances of syllables. Pronunciation guides like IPA are easier for the sound of the letters, but that wasn't the issue here.

At any rate, I can tell you, the way this speaker pronounced error was not standard for General American. I just wondered if it were standard for the East coast. I do think it is standard for British English, from what I could see in that 2008 discussion.

Sure. The best way would be to record the pronunciations for analysis. I added the IPA to show how I pronounce the two syllables. In speech, mirror is a lot like fire, i.e., 1 or 1.5 syllables.

I do the 1.5 syllable rendering of fire. As for error, I use two syllables. Is that an error?

I always say mistake.

Proof, you are from the East; how do you say error? I probably say it like I do fire - with 1 1/2 syllables.

However, Geoff and z aren't from the East so I don't get it. I'm going to listen more carefully. Perhaps I have misremembered how people say it.

EH-rah

Interesting. This speaker was from NC so there would be some southern component to her accent. She said it something like, eh-ROAR - really odd, in my opinion.

I had a committee in with people from around the country. As part of their introductions, I asked them to pronounce "error." Sure enough, those from the midwest tended to say "air;" the one person from North Carolina definitely said "air-ROAR." The others seemed to say "AIR-roar." So interesting.