Is the First Dictionary Pronunciation the Best One?

I know at some point I was told that the first pronunciation in the dictionary is the best one or the most common one—and maybe you were told this too—but I also remember hearing it isn’t true, so I did a little research.

From what I can tell, it seems like this rule was more common in the past. I found a book from 1918 that said “If more than one pronunciation is allowable, the preferred one is given first,” and the 1973 edition of Britannica Junior Encyclopedia for Boys and Girls says essentially the same thing: “Where there is more than one pronunciation, the preferred one is given first.”

But in newer reference books, it’s either ambiguous or clearly stated that the first pronunciation isn’t necessarily the preferred one.

The Oxford English Dictionary “Key to Pronunciation” simply says, “The pronunciations given are those in use among educated urban speakers of standard English in Britain and the United States.” To me, that seems to imply the order doesn’t matter since other dictionaries have been more direct about it.

My Twitter friends were especially helpful, quickly sending me the pronunciation information from the dictionaries they had on hand.

Freelance editor DeAnna Burghart said her American Heritage Dictionary reads:

All pronunciations given are acceptable in all circumstances. When more than one is given, the first is assumed to be the most common, but the difference in frequency may be insignificant.

American Heritage Dictionary

Karen Conlin, an editor specializing in indie fiction and also a past winner of the ACES Robinson Prize sent me a photo from the front matter of her Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, 11th edition, which was published in 2009 and is especially clear on the matter. It reads:

The presence of variant pronunciations indicates that not all educated speakers pronounce words the same way. A second-place variant is not to be regarded as less acceptable than the...

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