I image-searched "substantive" and came up with this. Now, how did you pronounce that in your head?

I'm not being a language snob, I swear. I'm right there with E.B. White when he describes his professor's attitude toward pronunciation in The Elements of Style:

[H]is original Rule 11 was "Make definite assertions." That was Will all over. He scorned the vague, the tame, the colorless, the irresolute. He felt it was worse to be irresolute than to be wrong. I remember a day in class when he leaned far forward, in his characteristic pose—the pose of a man about to impart a secret—and croaked, "If you don't know how to pronounce a word, say it loud! If you don't know how to pronounce a word, say it loud!" This comical piece of advice struck me as sound at the time, and I still respect it. Why compound ignorance with inaudibility? Why run and hide?

But I want to be as accurate as possible. So when I hear a word that sounds off to me or come across one in my reading that I'd hesitate to use in conversation, I write it in the margin of my planner and look it up later. As a gift to anyone who takes the time to read this, here's a list of this semester's most notable entries:

Substantive (SUB-stan-tive): real or actual; of considerable amount; essential; independent

Wan (wahn): pale, sickly

Proviso (pruh-VIE-soh): stipulation, condition

William Cowper (COO-per): English poet

W.E.B. Du Bois (doo-BOYS): civil rights leader, writer

Boethius (bow-EE-thee-uhs): Roman philosopher

Incongruous (in-KAHNG-groo-us): disharmonious

Afflatus (ah-FLAY-tus): divine creative impulse

Surplice (SUR-pliss): loose white robe worn in churches

Tulle (tool): thin netted fabric

Demur (de-MER): to object