I'm having an argument with my boyfriend: I pronounce banal to rhyme with anal and he says banal to rhyme with canal. Which one is the correct English pronoucation and which one is more Americanised?

So how do you say it and where do you come from?

The American Heritage Dictionary says the following:

The pronunciation of banal is not settled among educated speakers of American English. Sixty years ago, H.W. Fowler recommended the pronunciation (bān'əl, rhyming with panel), but this pronunciation is now regarded as recondite by most Americans: no member of the Usage Panel prefers this pronunciation. In our 2001 survey, (bənāl') is preferred by 58 percent of the Usage Panel, (bā'nəl) by 28 percent, and (bə-näl') by 13 percent (this pronunciation is more common in British English). Some Panelists admit to being so vexed by the problem that they tend to avoid the word in conversation. Speakers can perhaps take comfort in knowing that these three pronunciations each have the support of at least some of the Usage Panel and that none of them is incorrect. When several pronunciations of a word are widely used, there is really no right or wrong one.

I hope that helps.

Yup that's how I would say it. It's a french word brought into english. I'm perfectly bilingual French-English by the way.

So the french would pronounce it a la canal? Eep that's what my boyfriend said. Oh no I'm going to have to say he's right!

Texas I've been using that entry as a defence that there is no set pronunciation so we are both right (i.e. I'm not wrong!)

Like neither.

I pronounce it like this: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...n-uk-banal.ogg

I always thought it was banal as in anal but I heard it used on the TV show BONES pronounced as canal. So I looked up the pronunciation and found that it is either of those two plus others such as banal pronounced like the word all. I am unsettled by this so I will now pronounce it trite and leave banal for the prose.