How many syllables are in the word bakery?

Answer 1

There are three syllables in "bakery" (BAY-kurr-ee), but in common use these are slurred (like many "r" words) into only two (BAY-kree).

On the other hand, many authorities say that in fact there are only two pronounced syllables in ''bak (e)-ry'' with the schwa (e) elided (semi- or totally omitted), rather than simply ''slurred.'' (That would seem to indicate poor speech, when in fact two syllables is just fine.)

Some people try to over-correct, such as insisting that, for example, ''wintry'' be as if it were misspelled as ''wintery" rather than the correct ''wintry'' (two syllables). Similarly, people try to turn these words into three syllables, but in fact they have just two: battling, handling, startling, etc. They are not bat-tel-ing or han-del-ing. That is simply incorrect. Two syllables---all of them, and words like them.

If this over-correction trend continues, not only will more and more people incorrectly put the elided ''t" back in words such as ''often'' (which it is standrd and correct to pronounce as ''off-en''---no ''t''), they will even go so far as to incorrectly put the ''t'' back in words like ''listen.'' That would be ''list-ten" (as in "list number ten") which sounds ridiculous, but this is the over-correction trend we are ironically heading towards.

(''Ironically" preferably pronounced with just four syllables. Don't do imaginary and unnecessary "corrections"!)

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Author's update: Put three, even four syllables in ''handling'' and ''wintry'' if that is your druthers. It's your goof, or innovation---as you may prefer. Language is organic and if you want to mold it in that direction it is not forbidden by law to do so. If nothing ever changed, we would be speaking pure Latin.