How to pronounce Linkedin

Linkedin is a widely used platform for online networking. Personally, I believe that part of its popularity is partly due to the fact that it is often accessible at work whereas other social media websites are typically blocked. Regardless of personal opinions regarding the widespread overselling of personal skills and achievements on Linkedin, this post is about a rather common mistake regarding its pronunciation.

The correct pronunciation, which is even given on Wikipedia,  is in fact straight forward if you consider Linkedin to consist of the English words linked and in. Combining [lɪŋkt] and [in] immediately gives [lɪŋktin]. Interestingly, quite a few people instead pronounce Linkedin as [lɪŋkidin] or [lɪŋkedin], which does not match the standard English pronunciation of linked. Quite generally, the pronunciation of the ending -ed in past forms of verbs (linked is derived from the verb to link) is based on rules that are nicely explained here.  Because link ends with the sound [k], the -ed in linked is pronounced as [t].