IKEA reveals the right way to pronounce shop name
19 October 2021, 11:45 | Updated: 19 October 2021, 11:49
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Shoppers have been left shocked after learning the 'correct' way to pronounce IKEA.
It turns out you’ve probably been saying IKEA wrong this whole time.
The Swedish company was founded all the way back in 1943, but the pronunciation of it’s name has become a form of contention for years.
And while most of us in the UK say it as ‘EYE-KEY-UH’, the company is actually called ‘EE-KAY-UH’.
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The Instagram account for IKEA in Singapore told it’s followers the news to celebrate the 15th birthday of one of their stores.
They said: “Join us at all EE-KAY-UH stores from 21-24 Oct to celebrate IKEA Tampines’ 15th birthday!”
After the news was also revealed on Twitter, one person replied: “I refuse to believe this.”
Another said: “I'm not gonna pronounce it that way even if that's true,” while a third added: “I mean it's a Swedish brand so it makes sense that it isn't pronounced like an English word.”
The pronunciation of IKEA was brought to the attention of shoppers back in 2018 during their 75th anniversary.
A company spokesperson explained at the time the real origin of the acronym, which is a mix of the founder's name (Ingvar Kamprad), the name of Kamprad's family farm (Elmtaryd), and the location of the farm (the village of Agunnaryd, in Småland, Sweden).
They told Quartz: ‘“When Ingvar founded IKEA in 1943, he of course pronounced it with a typical Swedish accent: “Eee-KEH-Yah".’
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But it looks like the Swedish company isn’t particularly worried about the way it is pronounced by customers.
“It’s only natural that people pronounce ‘IKEA’ and the Swedish names of its products with a local accent,” the spokesperson said, adding: “That’s absolutely ok!”
Even Kamprad himself, who passed away in January, didn’t mind the different ways the word is said around the world.
While there used to be an accent on the e in the logo, this mysteriously disappeared when IKEA began expanding internationally in the late 1960’s.
