What (mis-)pronunciations drive you up the wall?

[wickerwoman]

I've been watching a box set of old David Attenborough documentaries so I can track his increasingly bizarre pronunciation. I have a theory that in 15 years his pronunciation will be indistinguishable as human speech.

Anyway, he used to say "him-ah-LAY-ah" and now he says "hih-MAAL-e-a." And he's traded in "uh-RANG-ah-tang" for "O-rahng-OOH-tan".

I'm also fighting with a co-worker who insists in the face of overwhelming evidence that you can't say "pro-nounce-e-a-tion"- nevermind that I've heard 5 separate people from the U.K., Australia and New Zealand pronounce it that way.

So what pronunciations hit your pretentiousness hot buttons.

[regnaD kciN]

1. Llama...

...rendered as "lama." "Ll," in Spanish, is actually a different letter of the alphabet than "L," and is pronounced "Y"...therefore, "llama" should be pronounced "yama." "Lama," on the other hand, is the proper pronounciation for a Tibetian holy man, not a Andean pack animal.

Also, coupon, when mispronounced "kew-pon." (It's derived from the French "couper" -- to cut -- and should be pronounced "coo-pon." I never heard anyone get it wrong until about twenty years ago, now it seems that half of the time, it's "kew-pon.")

And don't get me started on "NEW-KILLAR"... :eyes:

[jobycom]

23. Every English dictionary disagrees with you

In Spanish it may be Yama, but in English the pronunciation is lama.

http://www.answers.com/topic/llama

[billyskank]

41. Swimming against the tide there

To be fair, there are many words that foreigners pronounce differently. Do you call the capital of France "Paree"?

[Bear down under]

48. A one L lama, he's a priest,

And a two L llama, he's a beast.
And I will bet a silk pajama
That there ain't no three L lllama.
--------Ogden Nash

[tjwmason]

2. Schedule.

By which I mean the Americanised pronunciation. It's shedule not skedule.

Also decade when the stress slips onto the second syllable.

Oh and the growing tendency for folks over here to refer to one's rear-end as an ass - this is the U.K. that's an arse, an ass is a donkey.

:grr:

B.T.W. I'm afraid I'm with your co-worker viz-a-viz pronunciation. "Pronounceation" is another one which irritates me.

[regnaD kciN]

3. Do you also think an Army officer...

...should be referred to as a "lef-tenant?"

:shrug:

[tjwmason]

4. I don't think it

I know it. :P

[Random_Australian]

7. Yes, especially if they are a general.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

5. Why, then, do we not attend shool?

...or set sail on shooners?

[tjwmason]

6. Because English has irregular pronunciation.

How one word is pronounced can never be a definitive argument for another.

Ghoti as the prime (if somewhat misguided) example.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

10. It would be interesting to know how that change in pronounciation occurred

Perhaps we're merely in the process of developing the "American" language, just as modern English evolved.

[laheina]

13. Exactly my thinking.

All languages evolve. Why do *we* hafta be the wrong ones? :cry:

Even though British accents are very sexy. ;)

[Spider Jerusalem]

68. My guess is...

that it's simply the result of influence from southern/southeastern English speech, which is non-rhotic ('r' isn't pronounced unless it's at the beginning of a word or followed by a vowel), so 'arse' is pronounced sort of like 'ahss' (broad 'a'). American vowels tend to be flatter (less rounded) and positionally (as in where in the mouth they're said) lower, so that became 'ass' in American English (the change is recorded in American speech by the mid-1800's).

[Skittles]

16. I always thought "shedule" sounded ridiculous

And please spare me any lectures; I've heard them all from my English mum. :)

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

28. Lol, shedule just feels wrong coming out. It sounds Sean Connery -ish

who is awesome btw

[wickerwoman]

17. But then why did a former Australian coworker

get on my case all the time for saying "pro-nun-ci-ation." He was convinced that "pro-nounce-e-ation" was the only correct way.

You can't win for trying around here. :shrug:

[amitten]

70. Webster's dictionary has "schedule" with a k sound, not s.

So it is Americanized, but not incorrect (at least in America).

[Spider Jerusalem]

75. Here's what the OED says:

Pronunciation symbols in International Phonetic Alphabet; long S = 'sh'

("ʃɛdju;l, "ʃɛdəl; U.S. "skɛdju;l) Forms: 4–6 cedule, sedule, 5–6 cedull, sedull, 6–7 cedul, scedull, scedule, shedule, 6 schedul(l, (chedull, seadule, 7 shedulle), 6– schedule. Also 7 in Latin form scedula. In the 16th c., both in Fr. and Eng., the spellings scedule and schedule, imitating the contemporary forms of the Latin word, were used by a few writers. In Fr. this fashion was transient, but in Eng. schedule has been the regular spelling from the middle of the 17th c. The original pronunciation ("sɛdju;l) continued in use long after the change in spelling; it is given in 1791 by Walker without alternative; in his second ed. (1797) he says that it is ‘too firmly fixed by custom to be altered’, though on theoretical grounds he would prefer either ("skɛdju;l), favoured by Kenrick, Perry, and Buchanan, or—‘if we follow the French’—("ʃɛdju;l). The latter he does not seem to have known either in actual use or as recommended by any orthoepist. Smart, however, in 1836 gives ("ʃɛdju;l) in the body of his Dictionary without alternative, although in his introduction he says that as the word is of Gr. origin the normal pronunciation would be with (sk). Several later Dicts. recognize ("sɛdju;l) as permissible, but it is doubtful whether this was really justified by usage. In England the universal pronunciation at present seems to be with (ʃ); in the U.S., the authority of Webster has secured general currency for (sk).

So apparently a number of British orthographers, lexicographers and philologists once thought it should be pronounced as it is by Americans, but for some reason they decided to imitate the French.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

8. birfday

How could we develop such lazy tongues when they're constantly in motion?

[Random_Australian]

9. They get tired.

[laheina]

11. It would be interesting for a linguist to weigh in on this subthread. nt

[Cannikin]

12. Star Trak

:wtf:

[GoddessOfGuinness]

14. Sounds like go-karts

:D

[Skittles]

15. in the south: im-PORDANT

instead of "important" - it sounds so f***ing ignorant but I hear it in southerners all the time

[City Lights]

32. That gets me too.

It was the one thing that bugged me about listening to John Edwards.

[calico1]

18. Caramel pronounced "carmel"

There is an "a" in the word!

It also grates on my nerves when "Carribean" is pronounced "Carry-be-un."

I also can't watch Paula Deen too often without wanting to run out of the room screaming! "in-it" instead of "isn't it" is just one example.

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

29. If you listen close, southerners put a 'd' in there. It's "idn't it"

[mark414]

74. it's a midwestern thing...

and no it's not because we're stupid it's just the dialect

[NewWaveChick1981]

19. "Outer body experience" and "chester drawers."

:grr: :mad: It's "out-of-body experience" and "chest of drawers", folks! :eyes: I actually heard someone tell a friend of mine at her house, "Can you get me so-and-so out of the chester?" :yoiks:

[datasuspect]

20. "all" instead of "oye-il"

for the word oil

"guff" for the word gulf

[Skittles]

50. "far" for for

"ar" for or - more southern sh**

[datasuspect]

57. "fixin' ta"

for about to or going to.

"warter" for water

"dest" for desk

[Skittles]

65. alright I say fixing to

but to me that is not a mispronuncitation, that is Texas-speak

[Paladin]

21. "Reel--uh--tor" rather than "Reel-tor"

I think it's a southern thing, and a Texan thing in particular, slipping that extra middle syllable into the word "Realtor."

Sometime back, a real estate agent here in the Houston area had a radio ad running in which he expressed a desire to be everybody's "Reel-uh-tor." I sent the guy a note, telling him that if he was unable to pronounce his own job title, he wasn't going to be handling any realty on my behalf.....

[yellowdogintexas]

22. I hate that one too. How hard is it to just look at the word and

see where that little 'l' goes?
I once worked at a company which used a form called an adjudication sheet. Well all the way through training and the whole time I worked there, it was verbally referred to by otherwise intelligent folks as ...are you ready...???

wait for it...










the ADJUIFICATION SHEET.....where did the damn F come from (not to mention the extra "i"!) Morans.

[jobycom]

24. "You" or "you guys" when they really mean "y'all"

One day you yankees will learn how to talk.

[NewWaveChick1981]

25. Forgot to mention "nucular" and "fisical"

instead of "nuclear" and "fiscal". :grr: :mad: It's a good thing I don't have a loaded gun in my hand when I hear people say this... :nuke: W would be the first one shot....

[RevCheesehead]

26. Illi-noise.

There is no excuse for getting this wrong. None whatsoever.

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

31. I've always said Illinoy

It's French! I think. . . lol

[deadparrot]

45. In that same vein,

Missourah. :puke:

[jobycom]

46. That's like a state, isn't? Somewhere up in Canada?

I've heard they have states up north, too.

[GirlinContempt]

27. Clique

It's cleek, not click. I don't care what american dictionaries say. Everyone else knows that nothing in 'clique' adds up to click. Makes me bonkers.

[calico1]

33. When I worked at a cosmetics counter years ago

some customers would come in and ask if we carried "Clinic."
:grr:

[GirlinContempt]

34. Yeah, it's unbelievable.

Gotta wonder, sometimes.

[auntAgonist]

30. warshing maching / washing machine

doing the warsh, instead of doing the wash.
warsh your hair, you get the idea.

I work with a woman who says. "A really good ideal" instead of "good idea"
A man I work with speaks of being "flustrated" instead of frustrated, and .. he does things by ROPE instead of by rote.

these are very intelligent people they just have a habit of messing up words :shrug:

aA

[Flaxbee]

35. "flustrated" is a nice combination of flustered and

frustrated... could actually become a decent word, if you had the sense the guy knew he was mixing the two words and did it on purpose instead of through ignorance. My nieces would do stuff like that and often my family and I would pick up the word and start to use it, being careful to not slip while at work or whatever. "Flustrated" sounds like something my 5 year old niece would have come up with, along with "Happyween" (for Happy Halloween), a word I will use until I die b/c I love Happyween!

[Misskittycat]

36. "ekspecially" n/t

[thefool_wa]

37. Libary

My wife does this all the time. It used to be just the wayshe said it, now she does it because she knows it infuriates me :)

[idgiehkt]

38. this is personal. My mother pronounces Virginia as

Vaginia (vuh-gin-ia). To me it sounds like she's going to say Vagina. I can't tell you how incredibly, hugely, stinking much I hate this. I don't know why. Usually stuff like this doesn't bother me, but this...ARRGGGHH!!

[suzbaby]

39. "Crick" instead of "Creek"

Since when do two ees make an "ick" sound?

[Patiod]

60. Hey!! Here in Eastern PA - we catch crayfish in cricks!! nt

[Kat45]

40. Feb-u-ary instead of Feb-ru-ary, and liberry instead of library

Those are quite common, and I think most of the people that use them think that's how the word is pronounced.

[billyskank]

42. I've never heard anybody say "Feb-ru-ary"

[Kat45]

44. That's how it's supposed to be pronounced.

Though I don't hear too many people say it that way either. :-)

[dropkickpa]

43. Pittsburgh has some doozies

Rockwilder for rottweiller
Still for steel (go stillers!)
Lebnin for Lebanon
and even Picksburgh for Pittsburgh

I have one coworker who mispronounces a drug, and it makes me and everyone else insane. The drug is Reglan (pronounced exactly the way it looks). She calls it "Reg-yoo-len".

[femmocrat]

53. Pittsburgh has its own dialect, "Pittsburghese."

Also, "tagger" for tiger
"keller" for color
"tile" for towel (as in Terrible Tile)
"jist" for just
"flire" for flower and flour (but we say "power" correctly!)

There are probably a million of them!

[Patiod]

61. Aaahhhhh! They swallow their vowels and mangle grammer

and then turn around to Philadelphians and make fun of OUR accents. My pet peeve is "dawn" as in "me and Dawn went to the Gineiggle."

What's wrong with that? Well, because Dawn's full name is Dawnald.

[dropkickpa]

64. Funny thing is

Linguists have actually studied Pittsburghese and found that a lot of it has it's roots in Eastern European languages (the "hunky" steelworkers). Then there's yinz. Apparently, yinz comes from scottish roots. Weird. This is an interesting site with recordings and origins http://english.cmu.edu/pittsburghspeech/index.html and heres the official Pittsburghese website http://www.pittsburghese.com/

Though it still doesn't excuse the mangling of the language.

[uppityperson]

47. president

instead of ass-hole

[Bear down under]

49. The mountain range

*is* correctly pronounced Him-AHL-e-a. That is the pronounciation used by the people who live there, as my geography teacher in India used to point out with some asperity. (Strictly speaking it is a plural; the singular is Himal, which is used for the various ranges -- the Annapurna Himal, the Khumbu Himal, etc -- that comprise the system.)

The same applies to Orang-OO-tan; neither is an English word.

Attenburough is merely correcting his former mispronounciations, and that's nice to see.

My own pet hate is Clem-AY-tis. The flower is correctly pronounced as in Greek, KLEM-a-tis. And as a friend pointed out to another who was making the usual argument about English being an evolving language, it is not an English word.

"What is it then, smarty-pants?"

"It's a technical term in botany."

Ex-KWIZZ-ite is runner up. The stress goes heavily on the first syllable with the other two short.

I've never heard "pro-NOWN-cee at-ion." the second syllable is always nun, even in Australia. Among the literate, anyway.

[Fox Mulder]

52. You're right.

All four of my geology professors pronounced Himalaya as "Him-AHL-e-a" and said that is the correct way of pronouncing it.

[wickerwoman]

72. I know that's how it's pronounced by locals

but if I were talking about my last vacation and said "I went to Muenchen in Deutschland and then went on to Praha and Budapesht" you would be excused for thinking me a pretentious nimrod. Likewise, if I said I was taking a course in "sitch-u-an" cooking most people would have no idea I was actually studying "seshwan" cooking.

There are standardized mispronunciations in English and if your goal is to actually communicate (as opposed to simply displaying your superior education)you go with the "wrong" pronunciation.

[liontamer]

51. well those aren't mis pronounciations

hih-MAAL-e-a is how it's supposed to be pronounced. same with O-rahng-OOH-tan I suspect he's just getting his speech corrected by people from different regions. :shrug:

[femmocrat]

54. Here are two that I hear all the time:

a-PLICK'-able for AP'-lic-able (applicable)

and in-TEG'-rul instead of IN'-teg-ral (integral)

I even heard Thom Hartmann say "in-TEG'-rul" this week! Augh!

[Arkansas Granny]

55. Nuk-ya-ler. I cringe everytime I hear Bush say this word.

[jmowreader]

56. "Columns" always drives me NUTS!

Ninety-five percent of the English-speaking world pronounces the word "columns" as "col-umms."

People in Fayettenam love to say "col-youms."

If there's ever a story on CNN about a Home Depot employee choking a customer to death with his bare hands, it will be me and this will be why.

[TheMightyFavog]

58. ex-scape.

It's ES-scape. There is no x in escape.

[Patiod]

63. A DU pronunciation thread stopped me fr. ordering ex-presso

It was hard to overcome years of habit, but I now know to ask for es-presso

[AlienGirl]

69. For a while, EX-presso was Seattle slang for "really bad coffee"

[greguganus]

59. I hate when I hear someone say "skrimp" instead of "shrimp" n/t

[Patiod]

62. INsurance instead of inSURance

Was working in Missouri last week, interviewing patients, and they all had problems with their IN-surance. AHHHHhh!!!!

(although I must say they were very gracious when I constantly kept referring to their all-female group as "you guys".)

[YellowRubberDuckie]

66. People in Oklahoma say Onced and Twiced...

When it's once and twice. They aren't past tense. Also Acrossed. Oh that drives me insane. And then there's supposably. What the fuck does that mean anyway?
Duckie

[Spider Jerusalem]

67. No-one I've ever heard says 'pronounciation'...

that's just completely and totally WRONG.

OED gives the pronunciation (in the International Phonetic Alphabet) and etymology of 'pronunciation' as:

(pr@UnVnsI"eIS@n) Also 6–8 -noun-, 7 -non-; 6 -cy-, -sy-, 6–7 -ti-; 5 -cion.
American Heritage Dictionary has similar, here.

I can see SOME English dialects deviating from this some (Someone from the north of England, or the West Country, or a Scot, or an Australian with a heavy 'ocker' accent might say something that sounded kind of like 'pronoonciation', for instance, where the 'oo' is sort of like the sound in 'good').

[Bucky]

71. ex-scape goat

[Straight Shooter]

73. "chimley" instead of "chimney"

"ideer" instead of "idea," although that's probably a drawl thang. But I never could understand why people say "chimley."

[wildhorses]

76. sorry but sometimes my

twang gets toungled:smoke::beer::blush::yoiks:

[fudge stripe cookays]

77. A-loo-mini-um for the metal.

What the hell?

It's A-LOO-mi-num.