Go ahead, say it out loud: behind (as in, behind every great person…)

What did I just hear? B-hind. From you and on NPR this afternoon, no less.

When did we, even in clear, standard Walter Cronkite English, start incorporating pronunciations into our speech that are not being taught to the foreign-born (like me)? So that the foreign-born always sound…foreign-born?

I am especially confounded by the “b” words. I had to look up in the dictionary my colleague’s rendition of banal (she says it’s b-A-nal, I say it like b-hind, dropping the first vowel: b'naaaal), because I was confused by the sudden appearance of that A. It turns out that I am correct, b’nal is an accepted alternative, but who cares that I am right, if the world listening to me smiles benevolently and says – “how quaint, she follows the textbook.”

So, as I process all the new subtleties and I b’come like one of you, let me just ask, on b’half of all who have the b’lief that the first vowels are there for a reason, don’t drop them or add them without warning. Otherwise we, who don’t know any better, sound b’zarre as we enunciate our syllables, as the good Webster’s d’rects us, or drop them, not knowing that they ought to be retained. Or is it r’tained?