How do you pronounce ‘Cognisant’?

Posted by shiny_director@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 114 comments

I was listening to Radio 4’s PM with Evan Davis tonight, and he was discussing the crash of 1929 and the depression when he used, I think, the word ‘Cognisant’. But they way he pronounced it was like I have never heard- Cog-nize-ent (that middle bit rhyming with ‘eyes’. I’ve only ever heard of it pronounced ‘Cog-neh-zent’. I was raised in the USA, have lived 17 years in the south of England, and three years up north. I also spent a good bit of time visiting India and working with Indian natives who worked for the company ‘Cognizant’ and I’ve only ever heard that one pronunciation. Was Evan just being loopy? Did he misspeak? Does anyone else pronounce it the way he did?