How do you pronounce 'vaccine'? I have always pronounced it as [ˈvæksiːn], with stress on the first syllable; but today I heard an interview with Bill Gates, and he pronounces it as [vækˈsiːn], with stress on the second syllable.
I thought maybe this was idiosyncratic. But surely this must be a word he hears really often, given the work of his foundation on infectious diseases. So I looked it up in the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (LPD), which shows [ˈvæksiːn] as British and [vækˈsiːn] as American. Furthermore, it adds the symbol (*) to show that the difference is "unpredictable and striking" (LPD, p. xxxv). Well, you learn something every day.
In connection with the word 'vaccine', did you know it comes from the Latin for 'cow'? This is because the original vaccine was for smallpox, as the way to prevent people from catching smallpox is to give them cowpox, a much less serious disease that gives you immunity from smallpox.
