Sorry IKEA. We don't deserve your Swedish meatballs and allen keys.
We all have that friend who pronounces simple words incorrectly. Specific becomes pacific, ask is arks and espresso comes out as expresso.
However, we're now all guilty of the mispronounciation crime, with a beloved brand name becoming the latest victim.
Turns out we've been saying IKEA wrong this whole time.
Youtuber @MacDoesIt took to Twitter with the revelation.
So IKEA is pronounced like (EE-key-uh) not (EYE-key-uh) and no one was gonna tell me?
— mac (@MacDoesIt) October 11, 2021
IKEA is not eye-key-ah like we once had thought, but instead ee-kay-uh.
Commenting on his post, a Swede joined the conversation with a video of the actual pronounciation.
— ☥ neptune ☾ (@mxzuuu) October 11, 2021
An IKEA spokesperson confirmed the life-shaking news to Quartz
"IKEA is an acronym for the founder's name, Ingvar Kamprad; the name of his family farm, Elmtaryd; and the location of that farm, in the village of Agunnaryd, in Småland, Sweden."
"When Ingvar founded IKEA in 1943, he of course pronounced it with a typical Swedish accent: Eee-KEH-Yah."
The Swedish furniture store first arrived in Australia in 1975 - so yep, we've been mispronouncing it for 46 years.
i'm not gonna pronounce it that way even if that's true. eye-key-a for life
— tai (@taijitak0) October 11, 2021
Do you think the actual phonetics are going to stick? I'm - sorry, Ee'm - not so sure.
Image Credit: Kgbo, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
