my friend did contracting work for Puget Sound Energy and he had to keep retraining his employees to not say "Pungent Sound" as it was pissing off employees of the company
what other words or phrases are just always destined to be fucked up in an awkward way, no matter how many times you correct someone?
― CEO Greedwagon (Neanderthal), Sunday, 18 February 2024 21:34 (one year ago)
"Six of one, half dozen of the other" is a classic conference-room bungler.
― henry s, Sunday, 18 February 2024 21:40 (one year ago)
The proof is in the pudding, argh
― Maresn3st, Sunday, 18 February 2024 22:15 (one year ago)
People seem to often use enervate/enervating to mean the reverse, perhaps because the word begins like energy or energetic
― Maresn3st, Sunday, 18 February 2024 22:18 (one year ago)
Once a term I have to teach a class where I talk about quantitative vs qualitative research and I cannot get my mouth to pronounce either of those words without some effort
― This is Dance Anthems, have some respect (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Sunday, 18 February 2024 22:21 (one year ago)
I always want to add an extra syllable to “edited” - ediditted or something
― brimstead, Sunday, 18 February 2024 22:35 (one year ago)
When I was 16yo I pronounced hyperbole as Hyper-bowl as I'd never heard it pronounced before and 13 years later it still gets brought up. Impossible to win an argument with any of them when they've got that little gem in their backpocket
― H.P, Monday, 19 February 2024 00:05 (one year ago)
My brother pronounced minestrone "myne-strohn" for years. Dad almost disowned him
― CEO Greedwagon (Neanderthal), Monday, 19 February 2024 00:13 (one year ago)
mute point instead of MOOT point aaaargh
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 19 February 2024 00:23 (one year ago)
I hear a lot of people saying that something "segged" into something else, when you know they are seeing the word "segue" in their head.
― henry s, Monday, 19 February 2024 01:17 (one year ago)
Guess I wouldn't call that awkward, but it still bothers me.
It took me a long time to realise it was pronounced "segway" and not "seegged", as in vague, vogue etc
― ...eh you get the gist of it (dog latin), Monday, 19 February 2024 01:21 (one year ago)
yeah i had heard that word spoken on the radio for years and didn't quite know what it was before i eventually discovered they were saying "segue".
― visiting, Monday, 19 February 2024 01:29 (one year ago)
which, likewise, i had previously assumed was pronounced "seeg".
― visiting, Monday, 19 February 2024 01:31 (one year ago)
knew a kid in high school who had trouble pronouncing certain contractions, like instead of *wouldn't* he would say *wunt*
his struggles with *couldn't* were more notable
― mookieproof, Monday, 19 February 2024 01:55 (one year ago)
I've drawn mockery for apparently saying "was" as "wuz" but tbh i think everyone else is doing it wrong
― H.P, Monday, 19 February 2024 02:43 (one year ago)
Maybe the high school kid was just Australian
Listening to a post last week about the films of Charlie Kaufman, I came as close as I've come to "and then I fell of my bike" when I realised that synecdoche is pronounced in a similar way to the town of Schenectady (and indeed that's the joke) rather than sin-ec-dough-sh that I'd been mentally pronouncing it as. In conclusion, burn the Greek language to the ground.
― Andrew Farrell, Monday, 19 February 2024 11:43 (one year ago)
Similarly, I'd always pronounced Eurydice as 'you-ruh-deese' as that's how they say it in Cocteau's Orphee, which is the only place I'd heard anyone actually speak the name out loud. Imagine my surprise when etc
― kieth flett (Matt #2), Monday, 19 February 2024 12:06 (one year ago)
not really an 'always get wrong' but I knew someone from IRC years ago that thought 'might as well' was 'minds a well' and said we were wrong when we gently corrected her. she also called tennis shoes "tenor shoes", and thought the lyric in Positive K's "I Got a Man" was "I got a man/what's your man got to do with me?/I got a man/I'm not trying to head out sea", claiming 'head out sea' was a metaphor.
this was also the person who thought World War I was fought between the North and South over slavery
― CEO Greedwagon (Neanderthal), Monday, 19 February 2024 16:48 (one year ago)
I know someone who says "undoubtably" for "undoubtedly" and, apparently, this is quite common.
― The British Boy of Film Classification (Tom D.), Monday, 19 February 2024 16:55 (one year ago)
One that's very common but inexplicable to me is writing "thank you" as one word.
― The British Boy of Film Classification (Tom D.), Monday, 19 February 2024 16:56 (one year ago)
see also, "you're bias" instead of "you're biased"
unless you are this guy
https://i.ibb.co/vsWZnYN/LenBias.jpg
― CEO Greedwagon (Neanderthal), Monday, 19 February 2024 17:00 (one year ago)
On more than one occasion I've heard somebody say that they had experienced something surreal, akin to an "outer body experience."
― henry s, Monday, 19 February 2024 17:41 (one year ago)
Every time I see somebody type the word 'noone" on the socials I have to snarkily reply "Really? What was Peter Noone doing there? Was there a Hermits reunion gig going on?"
― henry s, Monday, 19 February 2024 17:44 (one year ago)
I might be wrong about this, but I don't think "enormity" refers just to large size.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Monday, 19 February 2024 17:46 (one year ago)
I haven't scrolled back through this thread, but the "absurd" vs "absurdist" thing *drives me up a wall*, and so many people do it.
― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table), Monday, 19 February 2024 21:36 (one year ago)
my parents straight-up laughed at me when, at like age seven, i pronounced socrates the way any little anglophone kid would
i have never forgiven them
― mookieproof, Monday, 19 February 2024 21:45 (one year ago)
years later, Bill and Ted stole that pronunciation from you
― CEO Greedwagon (Neanderthal), Monday, 19 February 2024 21:50 (one year ago)
it's not a word or phrase, but it's humorous that a completely unimportant thing like "what is the answer to this math problem" always results in wrong answers and huge knockdown drag out arguments online, mostly because everybody forgot PEMDAS after they left school and just do the problem left to right.
― CEO Greedwagon (Neanderthal), Monday, 19 February 2024 21:52 (one year ago)
awkwardly wrong to say PEMDAS when it's BODMAS
― mark s, Monday, 19 February 2024 22:04 (one year ago)
HERE WE GO FOLKS, THREAD IS ABOUT TO TAKE OFFFFFFFFFFFF
― CEO Greedwagon (Neanderthal), Monday, 19 February 2024 22:08 (one year ago)
due diligence
― kinder, Monday, 19 February 2024 22:08 (one year ago)
genuinely when I first heard people talking about FODMAP I was trying to remember what the hell maths operations that stood for
― kinder, Monday, 19 February 2024 22:09 (one year ago)
FUBAR
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Monday, 19 February 2024 22:12 (one year ago)
SNAFU
― Piggy Lepton (La Lechera), Monday, 19 February 2024 23:26 (one year ago)
I actually taught some youthful coworkers what a snafu is and they were eager to employ this useful acronym
― Piggy Lepton (La Lechera), Monday, 19 February 2024 23:27 (one year ago)
― mookieproof, Monday, February 19, 2024 3:45 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink
check out 13:41 for one of my favorite jokes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyOvrEuXHCw
― budo jeru, Tuesday, 20 February 2024 00:31 (one year ago)
I feel like people use 'ersatz' a lot when they really mean 'de facto'
― Maresn3st, Monday, 13 January 2025 16:12 (four months ago)
I would love it if people used the term "fait accompli" more often, though I'm sure they would typically bungle it, as no doubt would I.
― henry s, Monday, 13 January 2025 16:21 (four months ago)
Toni Halliday to thread
― hope is the thing with challops (f. hazel), Monday, 13 January 2025 16:28 (four months ago)
That was actually the first time I had even heard that term!
― henry s, Monday, 13 January 2025 18:33 (four months ago)
for all intensive purposes, you're correct
― Andy the Grasshopper, Monday, 13 January 2025 18:38 (four months ago)
… in this day in age
― The Whimsical Muse (Boring, Maryland), Monday, 13 January 2025 19:27 (four months ago)
pacifically
― tuah dé danann (darraghmac), Monday, 13 January 2025 19:34 (four months ago)
I first encountered 'ersatz' in old dirty magazine ads for 'spanish fly' pills... along with 'spurious'
Right there in the ad they're admitting they're fake, but I guess if you use fancy scrabble words, you'll still get some orders
― Andy the Grasshopper, Monday, 13 January 2025 19:36 (four months ago)