You say 'eye-key-uh,' I say 'ee-kay-uh' You say 'eye-key-uh,' I say 'ee-kay-uh' (August 27, 2003)

Pronunciation depends on where you live
XPeople will come from far and wide to shop at IKEA, but do they even know what the word means or how to say it?

Some think it's the name of IKEA's founder, others guess it's the Swedish word for furniture. Founder Ingvar Kamprad registered the name IKEA in 1943 at the age of 17, when he was selling seeds and fish to his neighbors on nearby farms. Turns out that IKEA is an acronym derived from the first letters in Kamprad's name, the first letter of his boyhood farm "Elmtaryd," and the first letter of his home village of Agunnaryd, Sweden.

"The question of how IKEA is pronounced becomes a question of how to pronounce an acronym," said Rob Robinson, a professor of Linguistics at Stanford University. "Look at NATO, that's said differently in just about every country."

Robinson said that the most natural way for Americans to say IKEA is "eye-key-uh."

For the Swedes, however, it's more like "ee-kay-uh."

Despite speaking Swedish himself, Robinson said he chose the American pronunciation out of simplicity.

"Other pronunciations are more hybrids, combining European and American sound values, like 'ee-key-uh,'" Robinson said. "Then of course, there's one more prospect which the company would hate: 'icky-uh.'"

-- Anna Galan