How to Pronounce 'Short-Lived'

 Here's a listener question about how to pronounce "short-lived":

"Hi, Grammar Girl. This is Brad in Lake Bluff, Illinois, calling. Enjoy your program, your podcast. Been listing to it for a long time. I've been wondering about asking you a question, and I was finally prompted by two of your recent episodes. One was the one on correcting people's mispronunciation and the other one was on 'deja vu,' and in that episode on 'deja vu,' you used the term that you pronounced as short-lived ["-livd"], and I'm asking if perhaps it should be pronounced short-lived ["-lahyvd"] because the term describes the length of life, and I would compare it to words like 'half' which changes to 'halved,'  'knife' changes 'knifed,' and 'roof' changes to 'roofed,' all of which when the F changes to a V [sound], retain the original vowel sound without a change there. Be interesting to hear what you think about that on your show. Thanks very much."

Thanks, Brad. Great question!

How to pronounce 'short-lived'

Dictionaries are a mixed bag on the word. Merriam-Webster online and dictionary.com both list both pronunciations. Merriam-Webster lists "short-lived" ["-lahyvd"] first, but Dictionary.com lists "short-lived" ["-lahyvd"] first. Collins Dictionary, a British dictionary, lists "short-lived" ["-livd"] as the British pronunciation and "short-lived" ["-lahyvd"] as the American pronunciation. But the Oxford English Dictionary, also a British dictionary, lists only the "short-lived" ["-lahyvd"] pronunciation—so the opposite, saying "short-lived" ["-lahyvd"] is the British pronunciation. So … I don't know!

One thing that does seem clear by searching YouGlish, a site where you can watch snippets of YouTube videos that use specific words, is that "short-lived" ["-livd"] is much more common there. The first 10 videos I watched all used it.

The etymology of 'short-lived'

Regarding etymology, two sources I trust seem to disagree....

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