ppl who mispronounce random words that are common and easy to pronounce

But last night, I heard "NAY-chos" for those cheesy crisp replacement things. That one really threw me, especially as it was from someone with an astonishing vocabulary who really should have known better.

OK, This belongs on the BB thread, you just reminded me about last nights best moment and it belongs here too.

My Mum made a lattice pie once and informed us we were having a la'tees, which sounds much more exotic.

I had a teacher who mispronounced pattern as pattren and have known several people who do the specific/pacific thing.

Kate - it's Ray-di-heater, according to my son. xpost

Also was recently flummoxed by the Head-on/HEE-don quandary.

re: pacifically, omg yes! that, and people who say progidy when it's clearly prodigy. and anythink instead of anything. gah.

The socio-legal system overthrown by Nelson Mandela in the early 90s was called A-PART-HIDE.

NOT 'A-par-thide' or 'apper-teed'!!!!

and i cannot say the word "vocabulary" to save my life. therefore i am thankful that there hadn't been many occasions in which my life had been dependent on the word "vocabulary" being pronounced clearly.

and yes.

Also, aesthetic being pronounced as Ass-tetic or acetic.

Kate, to somebody who's an expert in the history or politics of South Africa (or trying to promote themselves as such), Afrikaans should not be quite the unfathomable mystery it might be to the likes of me. It's the posing 'I-know-better' overtone that annoys, at least as much as the sonics of the actual word.

My other favorite affected pronunciation: 'suit' to rhyme with 'newt'. Alone it seems to tell me all the information about the speaker I'll ever need.

I love people who mispronounce common words, like my mother who calls 'bushes' 'boooosches'

Once I won an award in junior high for academic achievement or something and the principal pronounced my name as "Amonda" like it was something exotic.

Bloody Americans.

"A tough game then Barry?"
"Aye, defi-NETT-ly"

Oh, and, then there was an old boss of mine whose favourite word appeared to be "IRregardless", which I still refuse to accept.

Well sorreee ma'am, it's your name after all but what the hell are you going to expect?

PASTA HAS A SHORT 'A' SOUND. THAT IS ALL.

The funny thing is, the stereotypical British accent is all about round vowels (especially "A"), as in It's rah-ther good -- but all sorts of British people say "pasta" and "nachos" and "tacos" with flat A's, whereas we Americans are the ones who make them round.

instead of foe

whoops.

nachos should actually be pronounced narchos, though.

This is absolute fucking madness. nachos = NAH-chohs, in which the "AH" sound is just like the "ahhhhh" sound you have to make when you're at a doctor's or dentist's office and the doctor or dentist wants to check either your throat or the back of your mouth.

And as for Spanish vowels and the way they'd relate to Italian -- all Spanish vowels have one and only one method of pronuncation. Going by what jaymc posted upthread: the Spanish "a" sound is the same as the "a" in Italian; the Spanish "e" sound is the same as the Italian "short vowel" sound; the "i" sound is more like the "ea in tea" example given; the Spanish "o" sound is kinda interesting -- it's pronounced sorta like the "o in cozy" example, but the back of the tongue needs to be all tensed up (this is the one Spanish vowel that's very easy to mess up and very hard to actually get right, unless you were raised in an area with a high percentage of Spanish speakers, e.g. the American Southwest); and the Spanish "u" sound is the same as the "u" in Italian, unless it immediately follows the letter "g", in which case the "u" becomes silent. (BTW, the "g" sound in Spanish is always similar to the English hard "g" sound, you know, as in the word "English".)

Not in English it's not.

Oh yeah, that's right -- that's the other way the Spanish "g" can be pronounced. Usually when I think of "h" sound replacements in the Spanish language (since the actual letter "h" is always a silent one in Spanish pronuncation), I just think of the "j" (e.g. the Spanish word for jewelry, i.e. joya, or the Spanish word for juice, i.e. jugo), but yeah, "g" can also, at times, be an "h" sound replacement.

this girl keeps saying "overarching" like there is a k in it and i think one more time is going to send me over the edge!!!

why is she saying that word so many times in the first place?

Because she thinks she is intelligent but is really just verbose!

my english professor keeps pronouncing the "ch" in "archetype" like "chair" and i always thought it was with a "k" sound

LOL these two should hand out and mispronounce arch words together!

ok i thought i was going crazy!!

koverarching

The "ch" "archetype" is pretty common (if considered wrong).

I've never heard ARCH-etype, but I have heard overARKing: I think it's because people are imagining an arc going over something. Like a rainbow.

parstuhtype

I thought you meant overarchingk like Boris and Natasha or something.

A cousin of mine has NEVER pronounced the word "frustrated" properly - it's always "fustrated" for her. And what makes it even more irritating is that she'll usually say it twice for extra emphasis. "I'm fustrated, just fustrated!" as if she knows she's saying it wrong and is practically daring somebody to correct her.

very rarely i find I'm struggling with words beginning with "br..", like 'bring'. I end up rolling the R's waay too much, 'brrrrring'.

I got called out the other day for pronouncing "won" like the number "one".

"wun" just sounds wrong though, even though it's apparently correct.

also, anyone familiar with Hull will know that the "o" in "cozy" sounds nothing like italian round "o" :-)

a guy on jeopardy last night pronounced "libertine" so that it rhymed with "vine" and I wanted to mock him through the tv

snitzel
vunnerable

PUNISHABLE BY DEATH

I got called out the other day for pronouncing "won" like the number "one". "wun" just sounds wrong though, even though it's apparently correct.

'Won' and 'one' are exactly the same for me (and everyone in the south of England, I think). I know some northern accents differentiate between them, with one of the words rhyming with 'gone' and the other rhyming with 'gun' (but not a southern 'gun', just a northern one), but for the life of me I can never remember which way round it is.

My sister says: OMPEN instead of OPEN. There are others.

My uncle is a heavy reader who has nobody close to him to talk about the books he reads on a regular basis. So when he said something was 'dee-kay-dent' I was all WAIT WAIT WHAT oh, decadent.

As a filthy foreigner, ja, I would just like to say that I was -really- disappointed when I realized it's not pronounced "hayperbowl". wtf is this hypUHRbuhLEEEE shit. Curse you all.

I got called out the other day for pronouncing "won" like the number "one".

How would North Englanders pronounce "one", if not like "wun"?

Crimes against pronunciation by my girlfriend:

1. The first "a" in radiator pronounced like the first "a" in radical.
2. Sinusitis pronounced "sine-you-sitis"

I'm from Sheffield and I pronounce "won" and "one" identically. I wasn't even aware there was another option.

the boyfriend says "mannerism" as though it rhymed with "aneurysm"

:\

As a filthy foreigner, ja, I would just like to say that I was -really- disappointed when I realized it's not pronounced "hayperbowl". wtf is this hypUHRbuhLEEEE shit. Curse you all.

blame the greeks!!

I find that I often say "libary" if I'm not paying close attention to my, ah, diction. Fustrating. I think this is an inborn, genetically-coded laziness attempting to exert itself over my (already laziness-inclined) conscious will.

I have heard overARKing: I think it's because people are imagining an arc going over something. Like a rainbow.

or like an arch?

one of the higher paid leaders in our company leaves a whole section of the word "characteristics" out. during a seminar she lead, she repeatedly said it "charistics". that one baffled me.

How would North Englanders pronounce "one", if not like "wun"?

Sorry to leave it 18 months to get back to you on this. In the south of England they're both pronounced /wʌn/ (rhyming with 'gun' if you're a southerner). In the north of England, the

lol

(and it remained to this day a mystery...)

gah! accidental post!

{to continue}...the /ʌ/ sound is usually replaced with the /ʊ/ sound (used in 'put'), so you would expect most northerners to pronounce 'one' and 'won' as /wʊn/, but they don't. In some parts of the north they pronounce one of those words as /wɒn/ (to rhyme with 'gone' or 'swan'). But I still can't remember which one.

Wait, in the north of England, they pronounce the "u" in "mug" or "cup" like the "u" in "put"??

Yes, most of them.

Do they replace the "p" in "cup" with a glottal stop too? I'm trying to imagine this.

Glottal stop is more of a southern thing.

someone said chagrin (sha-grin) to me recently and i loled inwardly but it turns out it's not was pronounced shaa-graa(n) like a frnch thing, which is what i've always said.

was

I'll say shaa-graa(n)

we'll say it together.

next time

There is a street & Park here called Interlaken, between Lake Union and Lake Washington. Everyone pronounces it as if it were located in Switzerland and spelled Interlachen. It is between two LAKES, which we pronounce with a long A sound. It is not between two locks. Please stop calling it InterLOCKEN when it should be Interlaken.

Not sure this fits the thread topic now, but i'm glad I got that off my chest.

so many people call Puget Sound "Pungent Sound"

There's a movement afoot to switch its name to Salish Sea, which would solve that problem for good and all and replace it with a whole new set of mispronunciations.

neaderthal, I wanna know your methodology for perusing ancient threads, and how you decide which to revive