Remember in high school when some dude would lose a bet and the rest of his bros would shave fuzz off their junk area and glue it to his face? What did you call those little hairs? (PS, I was not involved in any way in this heinous act) Say it out loud, right now, Pubes. Well, not to ruin your day, but some experts say we’ve been pronouncing “pubes” wrong our entire lives.
“Pyoo-beez.” Not “pubes,” as you’ve always said and will likely always hear in your head. Pubies. Like, a bunch of li’l pubies. Kind of cute, kind of disturbing. Almost as weird as realizing that the term refers to “the area surrounding a person’s genitals” as well as the carpet growing in that region.
Pubes is a Latin word, used either as an adjective meaning “pubescent, arrived at the age of puberty, of ripe years, grown up,” or as a noun: “a sign of puberty” (very much including pubes themselves) or “young men of the age of puberty.” From the ancient Roman point of view, “pubes” was a two-syllable word, and that interpretation seems to have trickled down not just to Garner’s book but most authoritative lexicons.
But as you and I are aware, nobody says it this way. Even if we wanted to blame the “proper” pronunciation on Latin, things don’t quite add up. As for whether the general public would ever capitulate to the academic “pyoo-beez,” probably not.
