The other day I was arguing with a friend about the proper pronunciation of the name Carnegie, as in Carnegie Melon, or Carnegie Hall. The results are still inconclusive– in an interview about a book titled Carnegie, the author pronounces it car-NAY-gee, while the online pronunciator at Merriam-Webster pronounces it like I always have: CAR-neh-gee.

More importantly, in my ongoing search for truth, I stumbled upon the phrase “son of a bitch” using the same M-W online pronunciator (yes, stumbled). Oddly, there are two little speaker icons taking you to two completely different pronunciations.

The first one sounds like some guy with a monacle just spilled Pinot on his ascot. The second one is vaguely reminiscent of the 80s ebonics craze, as chronicled in the movie Airplane.

So when did M-W decide to start including ebonics pronunciations?