Pronunciation Police! (was Re: Spelling Police)

[Amy Z]

Angela the Brave bravely wrote:

> I must confess that I only recently learned to pronounce "sentient"
> properly last month, only by seeing it as a word of the day.
> 
> In my mind, I have always pronounced it as "SEN-tee-ent". I've been
> muttering "SEN-shent" under my breath ever since. :-)
> 

I say it SEN-shent, but this sounds like one that can go either way.  
I've certainly heard Buddhism scholars of very high pedigree say it 
both ways (you get this word a lot in Buddhist scripture, and not too 
many other places that I know of).  I don't know what the dictionary 
says, but anyway, dictionaries aren't dictated by God--they're put 
together by a bunch of linguists who look at all the ways people 
pronounce a word and then say "I don't care if 40% of Americans 
say 'nucular,' it's intolerable."

Amy Z