Any Port in a Storm - Post Message

« Post Message »

Welcome Guest. Please Login or Register.
May 24, 2013, 8:12pm

Any Port in a Storm :: On the Plaza :: Where Words Collide :: Post Message

Topic Summary

Posted by kerouac2 on Jul 21, 2011, 2:30pm

Here are some collected by ABC News:

Mispronunciation Pet Peeves

By LAURA RIPARBELLI
July 21, 2011

A self-proclaimed lexicomane (word lover), Charles Elster of San Diego, Calif., says he's "probably America's biggest pet peever about pronunciation."

"People judge you by the words you use in print or [that come] out of your mouth. You will not be judged kindly," said Elster, who published a book in 1999 appropriately named "The Big Book of Beastly Mispronunciations. "It's really a question of trying to be right, because being right is a good worthy end in itself. It's about getting it right, doing it as well as you can and not passing along your ignorance to the next person."

There's no shortage of words in the English language that go mispronounced on a daily basis, enough to make some people within ear-shot cringe. The difference between tomato and tom-ah-to, potato and po-tah-to and countless others are enough to invoke a near-visceral reaction, as we found out by polling readers on ABCNews.com.

Here are our favorities from the more than 100 responses we received:

Nuclear

This is more of a mispronunciation issue than a "two-ways-to-pronounce" issue, but every time George W. Bush would say NEW-KYU-LER it felt like chalk on a thousand blackboards.

-Warren Levine

Mischievous

My biggest pet peeve is the mispronunciation of the word mischievous ... it is not mischievious ... there is not an "i" in the last syllable. My second biggest pet peeve is the pronunciation of the "t" in the word often ... would one pronounce the "t" in the word soften? I don't think so ... so please don't enunciate in the word often either. Thank you for letting me get that off my chest.

-Paula Blalock

Endive

I hate when Food Network people call endive "on-deev." It's ridiculous and pretentious. Watch "Chopped" once in awhile. Despite the fact that my girlfriend and I enjoy the show, they just get so huffy and self-important. It's annoying.

-Sean Shank

Wash

I do not warsh my clothes or dishes, I wash them. I'm not sure what is involved in warshing. Maybe there is an extra step involved rendering your warshables extra clean. Perhaps a car warsh in vastly superior to a car wash.

-Tammy

Voila

"Voila" mispronounced or even misspelled as "wahlah." It makes my skin crawl and I become the annoying person who corrects her friends every time I see or hear them misuse it. Funny side note: When I corrected my boyfriend and told him how to spell and say it correctly he said, "I saw it spelled that way before and thought it was pronounced 'viola'!"

-Celeste

Picture

Pronouncing the word picture as "pitcher." I have overheard the comment, "What a lovely pitcher." I scan the room for a vessel that would contain a beverage or perhaps flowers. Maybe [professional baseball player] Zack Greinke is present? I then spot the lovely "pitcher" hanging on the wall of a family vacation. Disappointing. I was rather looking forward to some lemonade or sangria.

-Tammy

Quesadilla

As a Spanish major, my biggest pet peeve is when ignorant Americans pronounce Spanish words with a twang. Quesadilla becomes "kay-suh-dil-a," hola becomes "hoe-la ..." At least learn the basics correctly!

-Ivy

Measure

I had a teacher in elementary school who said "may shure" instead of "measure." It drove me nuts in second grade! I've never met anyone who mispronounced this word before and it still drives me nuts and I'm 31!

-Sheila

Coupon

Coupon being pronounced Q-pon last I checked there is no Q in coup-on! (coop-on)

-Julie

Italian

Italian, It is supposed to be: It - al - ian not: Eye - tal - ian I absolutely hate it when people say they love Eye-talian dressing, or Eye-talian subs. Since when did the Eye-talians immigrate from Eye-taly?

-Orry

Espresso, ask and escape

I cringe whenever someone mispronounces "espresso," "ask" and "escape." There is no "x" in any of these words! It may be petty but hearing "expresso," "ax" and "excape" makes me lose respect for the speaker!

-Rachel H.

Converse

I really hate when people say "conversate" when the correct word is "converse." For example, We were trying to conversate when we were interrupted.

-Robin Lovell

Stir

Got one that drives me nuts. It's "stir" when it's pronounced "steer." In fact, there was a song back in the sixties that phonetically was called, "Steer it up," and to this day it makes me want to reach through the radio and yank out the singer's tonsils.

-Allie Cullen

Frustrated

My pet peeve is that so few people are able to pronounce frustrated. I've heard fustrated, flustrated and many more variations!

-Kellie Kirk

Supposedly

Probably the worst one that just kills me is when people say "supposably" instead of "supposedly."

-Eric Hicks

Aunt

It drives me crazy to hear people say "ant" instead of "Aunt." Treat your relative with respect! She's not a bug.

-Kristin Shaver

Usually

Instead of saying the word "usually," my husband says "lusually." Drives me nuts!

-Erica Townsend

Posted by kerouac2 on Jul 22, 2011, 8:14pm

I say aunt pretty much like ant. I don't think aunt rhymes with taunt.

Posted by bixaorellana on Jul 23, 2011, 9:40pm

I notice more and more people in real life & on tv saying "fer" instead of "for". >>shudder<<

Posted by hwinpp on Jul 28, 2011, 8:16am

I hate Shri Lanka. Those CNN people love it though.

I don't mind Eyetalian, Eyerak or Eyeran that much, but I pronounce them correctly

Posted by Don Cuevas on Jul 28, 2011, 12:06pm

Along the lines of mispronouncing "quesadilla", is this pronunciation of "Chillies RaYAHNos". I don't know where my friends picked up that one.

Posted by patricklondon on Jul 31, 2011, 1:27pm

I get narked with the number of people in the UK who call Ibiza Eye-biza.

But there we are.

Posted by joanne28 on Aug 22, 2011, 6:05pm

When a teenager, I had a friend whose mother would eat "sangwiches". Drove me nuts!

Posted by onlymark on Aug 22, 2011, 6:22pm

I hate it when people mispronounce the word "mispronunciations".

How about 'controversy'?

Posted by joanne28 on Aug 22, 2011, 6:26pm

Mark, "controversy" is a "potato - potatoe" thing to me and doesn't bother me.

I once worked with a woman who had trouble with a number of words. The one I remember most clearly was "de-vasted" for "devastated". I had a dreadful time trying to control my giggles and it was one of her favourite words, to boot.

Posted by bixaorellana on Aug 25, 2011, 4:24am

There is more than one way to pronounce controversy? I didn't know that.

I think a few of the people in the OP list are nearly as ignorant as the "mispronouncers" they despise. "Often" is correct both with and without the t being pronounced. Aunt-as-ant, *stir-as-steer, & warsh-as-wash are regional pronunciations, and aunt-as-ant is very widespread.
*She wants to rip out Bob Marley's tonsils?!

Here's the poop on endive: http://endive.com/how-to-pronounce-endive

Posted by mickthecactus on Aug 25, 2011, 1:09pm

Correct me if I'm wrong.

In the US herbs are pronounced 'erbs in a sort of French way?

Posted by kerouac2 on Aug 25, 2011, 1:43pm

Just erbs. Filet is what is pronounced in a sort of French way.

Posted by mickthecactus on Aug 25, 2011, 2:01pm

So why miss off the "h"?
I was thinking of french words beginning with h where the h is not pronounced.

Posted by kerouac2 on Aug 25, 2011, 2:52pm

That is one of the trickiest things in French -- the aspirate H vs. the silent H. You don't hear either, but with the aspirate H you can't make liaisons or use an L-apostrophe instead of Le or La.

Posted by mickthecactus on Aug 25, 2011, 2:56pm

Aug 25, 2011, 2:52pm, kerouac2 wrote:

That is one of the trickiest things in French -- the aspirate H vs. the silent H. You don't hear either, but with the aspirate H you can't make liaisons or use an L-apostrophe instead of Le or La.

Oui.

But why in the US is it erbs and not herbs?

Posted by bixaorellana on Aug 25, 2011, 2:58pm

re: herb ~~ http://www.thefreedictionary.com/herb

That reminded me of something that drives me up the wall, though: "an historic occasion".
WHY? We don't say we're going to an history lesson, or that so&so had an hysterectomy, do we?
It seems to be a fairly new abberation, from the last ten years or so, & used initially by politicians. Am I wrong about this?

Posted by mickthecactus on Aug 25, 2011, 3:04pm

Well, there you go.

Just one of those things then.

Thanks Bixa.

Posted by bjd on Aug 25, 2011, 4:22pm

Back in the old days in Canada I had an English teacher who said "an historic ...". So, no, it's not a recent development. She probably said "erbs" too.

Posted by hwinpp on Aug 26, 2011, 5:24am

I agree with Bix re the a/ an issue and I always thought I knew the rule.

Apparently the rule I grew up with is wrong though and actually it doesn't have to do with the first letter of the word but with number of syllables?

Posted by kimby on Aug 26, 2011, 1:50pm

I was taught "an historic occasion" back in the 60's, and believe it is a remnant from earlier times (colonial days perhaps) that in recent years has been falling out of favor, with the exception of some hoity toity newscasters...

Posted by kimby on Aug 26, 2011, 1:51pm

I also say " 'erbs", and would think it sounded strange if someone said "herbs" because there just aren't that many men named Herbert anymore

Posted by mickthecactus on Aug 26, 2011, 2:21pm

But you wouldn't say erbaceous or erbivore though.

Wonder why the h got dropped?

Posted by kerouac2 on Aug 26, 2011, 11:32pm

Actually, that is the way I say those words.

Posted by onlymark on Aug 27, 2011, 5:51pm

Re - "an historic occasion" - I understood the same rule with a/an as regarding the vowel/consonant, but also I thought that if the first letter can be missed out/aspirated/sound like a vowel when coupled with the rest of the word, then an applies.
E.g. an hour.

Ask a German to pronounce 'Ballet' and they will say the t on the end.
Ask an Englishman to pronounce 'fillet' and he'll do the same (unless he then is looked on as being a bit pretentious).

Posted by kerouac2 on Aug 27, 2011, 5:59pm

I confess that I would tend to say "a historic occasion" like many speakers of American English, but this is absolutely one point that I would not defend. If somebody were to decree that the British usage is better, I would agree, even though it adds more fuel for the people who say "English is not a logical language." (I don't think any language is logical except maybe Esperanto.)

Posted by bjd on Aug 27, 2011, 7:03pm

There are only four words in English in which the h is not pronounced: honest, honour, hour and the last one which I can never remember. History/historic are not on the list.

Posted by onlymark on Aug 27, 2011, 8:59pm

I think 'heir' is the other one.
However, in the 18th and 19th centuries words like historic and horrific were pronounced without the h (apparently).
So I must just be a throwback.

A quick Google on a/an historic reveal 22 million hits with 'a' and 7 million with 'an' (though probably a large amount of those are debating the proper usage).
So a lot of us may be wrong.

Posted by kerouac2 on Aug 27, 2011, 10:02pm

I would imagine that the evil nearby French influence is responsible for the silent H in certain words.

Posted by bixaorellana on Aug 29, 2011, 2:02am

In the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit that I'm incapable of saying theater correctly.

Other words that get the Clampett treatment from me are cement and (occasionally) police. :-[

Posted by mickthecactus on Aug 30, 2011, 12:42pm

The Clampett treatment! Brilliant! (I can just see you as Elly Mae Bixa)


site search by freefind	advanced

Click Here To Make This Board Ad-Free