two-legged

An announcer was describing a race in two parts. He referred to as two-legged. That was said [tu-leg-uhd]. As soon as the word was out of his mouth he obviously felt uncomfortable with it. The pronunciation [tu-leg-uhd] seems to limit the meaning of the word to people with two legs. A [tu-leg-uhd] race was therefore a cause for amusement. So the next time he came to two-legged he said it as [tu-legd].  I had never thought about the difference between [tu-leg-uhd] and  [tu-legd] before.

 When two-legged relates to a person with two legs then either pronunciation is possible.  When two-legged means ‘in two parts’, such as a race or a journey, then it seems that only [tu-legd] is possible. This conveys the duality but leaves the legs out of it.