My Pet Peeve: How Do You Pronounce Coupon

We all have a Pet Peeve or two, little things that annoy us way beyond their actual significance in life. I have a million of these but even I was surprised when someone posed that question to me, how quickly one came to the forefront. It turns out my main Pet Peeve is the way more and more people pronounce the word coupon, as if it started with the letter "Q".

My skin starts to crawl whenever someone pronounces those cents-off tickets as if they were written qpon. I do not know why this is. Generally I am neither a grammar nor pronunciation snob. And even if I was, dictionary.com has coo-pon and kyoo (really?) as acceptable versions.

But I think it is easy to see why this qualifies as a Pet Peeve for me. English is filled with rules that have exceptions, like i before e EXCEPT after c or when sounded like a as in neighbor or weigh. And even that has exceptions, like seize and leisure. Why does pronouncing c-o-u as a q stand all by itself?

You would not talk about a military "Q" you would say coup
You would not call a two-door car a "Qpe" you would say coupe
You would not describe a dress as being "Qture" you would say couture
You would not refer to your comfortable Qch" you would say couch
You would not call the animal a "Qgar" you would say cougar

I could go on and on but I believe you get the point. According to WordOver.com there are 812 words in the English Language that start with the letters c-o-u. Admittedly, I do not know all of these but not one word on that list which I find familiar is the c-o-u part pronounced as if it was a q.

I want to know who started pronouncing coupon as if it began with a q and why the world at large seems to think that this is okay.

Is the letter c not confusing enough? We have the hard c and the soft c - that should be plenty for everyone. Can you imagine an English teacher telling his students the letter c can be a hard c like cake, camel or clever. Or it can be a soft c like ceiling, cent or city. Or one word in the entire English Language where it sounds like a q?

Is that not ridiculous? Should that not be all thinking people's Pet Peeve?

So, I say fight the power. The next time you are at the grocery store and the checkout person asks if you have any qpons, gently remind him that there is no q in the word coupon and that like the other 812 words that start c-o-u and the tens of thousands of words that start with the letter c, we do not pronounce it with the letter q.