Maybe it’s partly regional, but growing up it was always “nitch”. Like “Tom has really found his (nitch).” It only seems to have been making the transition to “neesh” in the last 10 years or so and it still sounds off to me.
Comment on Niche species
atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks agoI am confused, do you think niche rhymes with bitch?
BruisedMoose@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
It’s originally a French word so I would guess that nitch is likely the more recent mutation.
chunes@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Yeah. “Nitch” didn’t show up until 1917 and got added to the Webster dictionary in 1961.
BruisedMoose@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
Oh, I agree. The Frenchish version just wasn’t around me growing up.
Velypso@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
It is commonly pronounced that way in the US, imo both pronunciations are correct.
chunes@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
As an American if someone said “nitch” out loud I would secretly die inside and then do my best to remember this:
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FundMECFS@anarchist.nexus 3 weeks ago
It would make me cringe asf but similarly I would remember policing how people use words to uphold some „purity“ of language is mostly BS and your time can be spent in much better ways.
teft@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
Pretty much every language besides english has an institute dedicated to doing that exact thing. In spanish it’s the Royal Spanish Academy (La Real Academia Española).
atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
I’ve never heard anybody pronounce it that way, and since we regularly tell children to “sound it out” to spell things I am going to go ahead and say no to adding letters personally.
rumschlumpel@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
I mean that t is kinda already there if you don’t know that it’s French. Compared “beach”.
Sidhean@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
“Nitch”