LEDs and the correct pronunciation
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Music by Eric Matyas
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Track title: Puzzle Game 3
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Chapters
00:00 Leds And The Correct Pronunciation
00:41 Accepted Answer Score 6
00:57 Answer 2 Score 24
02:01 Answer 3 Score 2
02:31 Answer 4 Score 5
03:24 Thank you
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Full question
https://english.stackexchange.com/questi...
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Content licensed under CC BY-SA
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Tags
#pronunciation #acronyms
#avk47
ANSWER 1
Score 24
Setting aside the question of "correct" pronunciation, we can look at actual usage and draw some conclusions. Although this is a question about pronunciation, we are lucky in that we can look at written usage to get clues about pronunciation: if someone writes "an LED" we can assume they would have used the spelling pronunciation, and if they write "a LED" we can assume they would have used the word pronunciation.
A quick perusal at Google Ngrams shows that "an LED" is more commonly used, so the spelling pronunciation’s correctness is not in question. However, we can look at how common do we find "a LED", indicating a likely use of the word pronunciation
We see that since the 1980s, when the term came into wide use, about 20% of usages have held pretty steadily with the word pronunciation.
What conclusions can we draw from this? Well, not a lot. The spelling pronunciation is definitely preferred, but the word pronunciation is not unknown. It doesn't seem to be going away, so I would say it has established itself as a valid, though less common, variant.
ACCEPTED ANSWER
Score 6
I'm from Poland where I studied electronics and I say LED as in lead, but we don't have any other word(s) to mix it up with, whereas you have lead and led in English. I have noticed people pronounced it as acronym only.
ANSWER 3
Score 5
The Oxford English Dictionary has LED pronounced /ɛliːˈdiː/ ... Also the alternate spelling l.e.d. ... they list a third alternate spelling led with pronunciation /lɛd/ .
added for Tim
The OED does not try to tell us what is "correct usage" but only what they find actually used. Most of their examples are LED but they do have these as well:
1975 Hi-Fi Answers Feb. 78/2 The light pulses from the led are picked up by a photo-conductive cell and applied to the filter.
1976 Pract. Electronics Oct. 810 (caption) Block diagram of the system using two separate l.e.d. displays.
1982 What's New in Computing Nov. 19/2 The logger can be programmed to these levels, indicating on a led display which channel is giving a fault condition signal.
ANSWER 4
Score 2
In speech, the context also determines how it is pronounced.
An /ˌel iː ˈdiː/ TV compared to an LCD TV;
but
/led/ lights compared to a neon lights.
LED (yourdictionary.com)
lead. ☆. noun. a semiconductor diode that emits light when voltage is applied: used in electric lighting, alphanumeric displays, as on digital watches, etc.