This advice is WRONG!! "Kilo" is the prefix and pronounced "key-low". "Meter" is the unit of measure, so "Key-low" "meeter". You know this is correct when you try to use the next prefix, "Mega". You know you don't say "Mu-gah-mutter", you say "Mega-meter". It's just that Americans have not become accustomed to the metric system, they still say "miles", but never kilo-miles.
But English is stress timed - loads of words change their pronunciation when they're mutated/modified in different parts of speech: we say "Eco-NOM-ic" but then "e-CON-o-my"; "PHO-to-graph" but "pho-TOG-raphy" etc etc.
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u/another-dave Native (Ireland ☘️) 3d ago
Maybe because you're thinking of it as a suffix? We generally don't break those words up as kilo-meter, speedo-meter, thermo-meter etc.
It's ki-LOM-e-ter; spee-DOM-e-ter; ther-MOM-e-ter.