We all have that one friend who drives us nuts with weird pronunciation.

In my teen years, for instance, I had a friend who always said “melk”; and a current pal insists on pronouncing the “T” in often — which is acceptable but still makes me cringe.

For my part, I’ve been known to induce heebie-jeebies by putting stress on the second syllable in advertisement: ad-VER-tiss-ment.

There are actually three ways to say that word, and mine comes second; yours is probably first. Or should I say … prob’ly?

Sigh.

We’re off and running in this second week where “Weird Words” looks at pronunciation. It’s a nitpicky topic, but as it turns out … nearly everybody has strong opinions on the matter.

In our last issue, we explained that there’s sometimes more than one way to pronounce a given word — as with creek, route, data and Wilkes-Barre (the latter actually has three). Decent dictionaries list these in order of preference — so the first one shown, you might say, is “rightest.”

And in that column, I likewise explained the major reason for these variations: English has more sounds than letters.

Specifically, we have 25 consonant sounds and 20 vowels. As an example, “u” can be vocalized at least five ways: super, mud, put, focus and cute.

To make things worse, our 20 vowel sounds include six diphthongs (what a great word!). This is a combined vowel sound which no one ever thinks about (unless you’re in a choir, where you have to deal with it).

The vowel sound in toe, for example, is a blend of “oh” and “oo” — like this: toh-oo. Just try saying it without the final “oo” and see how dumb you sound.

Same goes for the vowel in cow, which also ends with “oo”: kah-oo. And finishing with “ee,” we have the sounds in day (deigh-ee); boy (boh-ee); and my (mah-ee). And in the sixth diphthong, “oo” follows a “y”-sound — as in mute.

Believe it or not, some consonants are also blended.

The “ch” in church starts with a T and then adds SH — while the J-sound (“juh”) begins with D and adds the “zh” in leisure.

And here is our weirdest thing this week, which tends to blow the minds of students in my speech class:

Those two sounds — the J in joke and the CH in choke — are essentially the exact same letter; but one uses the voice, while the other does not.

To explain more clearly, while some of you are putting the top of your head back on:

Every sound has a precise place in the mouth where it’s supposed to be pronounced. The N in none, for example, is made by pressing your tongue against the back of your teeth. This is also where one makes D, T, S, L and Z. (Go ahead: Try it.)

By contrast, F and V are made by putting your upper teeth against your lower lip. And I’ll bet you just tried those two as well!

Now do it again — and notice that both are exactly the same; but V uses your voice, while F is only air. (If you doubt me, try it with a finger on your larynx.)

Amazingly, there are eight such sound-pairs in our language — that is, two letters spoken exactly the same, one with voice and the other without.

Besides F and V, we already mentioned CH and J; those two are made with your tongue against the “hard palate” — on the roof of your mouth.

Here are the others, with the voiced sound first:

B / P (made with lips). Go ahead: Say buh, then puh. See what I mean?

And now try these:

D / T (“duh” and “tuh”). Similarly, Z / S (“zzz” and “sss”). These are all made with tongue and gumline, as described above.

K / G (“kuh” and “guh) — made with the back of your tongue on your “soft palate.”

The different TH sounds in thin and this (made with tongue and teeth).

And finally, the SH of ship and the ZH in measure (once again, tongue and hard palate).

This in turn explains why English spelling can be a nightmare; because — for example — the word pronounced “metal” can be spelled three other ways: meddle, mettle and medal. All because of that pesky similarity between D and T!

Now to paraphrase Jesus in the Gospel of John: “I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear it at this time.”

So we’ll get back to pronunciation next week — and I leave you with this:

The preferred pronunciation of that bucolic city near Scranton is WILKS-berry; but you can also say WILKS-bare-uh. Or, if you like, just WILKS-bear.

I wonder how people who are from there say it?