Oh, sorry, lol. I'm from Arkansas and we say "ant".

According to Webster's New World Dictionary, both pronunciations are acceptable. The problem, in my experience, wasn't in how people said it but how people spelled it. A-U-N-T and not A-N-T.

Dear Sneed,

At least they knew to capitalize. If you are going to clear dust from someone's eyes, make your to remove the plank from yours first.

Don't assume people who say "ideal" as a noun are entirely wrong in using it. According to Webster's New World Dictionary, "ideal" can be used as a noun if the idea in and of itself is ideal. Here's the word-for-word definition:

i-de-al: adj. 1. existing as an idea, model, etc. 2. thought of as perfect 3. existing only in the mind; imaginary --n. 1. a conception of something in its most excellent form 2. a perfect model 3. a goal or principle

So, let's say your high school English teacher says the word and you laugh, thinking she's stupid. If she were talking about Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech, she would be correct in her usage because he had envisioned ideals of the human social position.

However, if your teacher we're talking about how some idiot football player had gotten the "ideal" into his head to cheat on the last English test, that would have been incorrect usage due to how imperfect the idea of cheating is. Aside from moral and ethical issues it brings about, there's always a chance of getting caught, no matter how discreet the method is-if someone were to discover the ideal way to cheat, I would be grateful, believe me; I hate studying.

Anyway, I hope this has cleared some of the confusion up, granted I'm about four years late.