Pajiba

So are you saying I should have been embarassed when I told my principal in 5th grade that I was positive my teacher was "impotent" when I meant "incompetent". Well damn.

"awry" was pronounced: a-rye. I'd always pronounced it to rhyme with "bawdry."

Oh, FUCK ME.

I got a good one. Possibly offensive.

I grew up in Texas and went through a phase with my friends where we loved to go knock on people's doors and run away. Hilarious right? We called it "Nicker Knocking" or so I thought. I figured it was a singsongy thing: nick nock, like tick tock...

Yeah, actually, it was "Nigger Knocking." I was horrified when corrected and never said it or did it again.

Fuckin' Texas...

Here's a toss-up: I've always said (accurately, I would argue) "all of a sudden." But I know a few people -- in the south, so maybe this is a geography thing -- who say "all of the sudden."

Is it "case IN point" or "case AND point"?

And ever since Rhianna, I've caught myself writing "umberella" rather than "umbrella".

For years, my "albeit" rhymed with "bite."

I guess I really only read it for years without ever hearing it used in spoken language.

I used to date this guy who ALWAYS pronounced moot as "mute". AAAAARRRGGGHHH! Drove me crazy! I finally corrected him and he called me ignorant. I dumped him and vowed to only date intelligent men.

Also, I know people who interchange these:

They blew me out (instead of blew me off)

They narked me off (instead of narked me out)

Drives me insane.

http://www.cracked.com/article_15664_9-words-that-dont-mean-what-you-think.html

Check out cracked.com's list of Words That Don't Mean What You Think. I myself have been guilty of these!!!

I thought that jicama was pronounced with a hard J like in my name until a few years ago.

I didn't fully grasp the difference between its and it's until freshman year of college (oh the horror).

I saw a lot of funny stuff while working in the Writing Center in college...for instance, one girl thought that interview was two words. Lordy.

beckyloo... that's not just a Texas game...

Mr. Skegg pronounces orNAments, orDAments. I only noticed when he pronounced it correctly and corrected himself "orDAments". Turns out his parents say it too. He was adamant.

I've never really had pronunciation problems, I read a lot and have a good ear for linguistics. Mischevious is tricky. Not even sure I spelled it right...

My brother is a freaking goldmine of mispronunciation though. He once read "chaperones" as "cheaper ones"

There's a couple of words that my wife consistently butchers: she says "supposively" instead of supposedly, and almost always uses the word "scald" when she means scold. I still halfheartedly try to correct her when one of these comes up in conversation, but by now it's generally for naught.

A particular friend of mine also loves to use the word "premise" in place of preface. As in: "Let me premise this story by saying..." I've corrected her, at length, at least thrice now.

Me? I'm with Riles. Grammatically perfect.

Unfortunately, I mispronounced the word "facade" to rhyme with arcade, instead of the correct "fuh-sahd" Although, I would hold that any word that is part-and-parcel stolen from another language (like French) can be pronounced however we as a nation decide it should be pronounced. In my book, "quesadilla" rhymes with armadillo!

I'm a word- and lyric-Nazi (as Mr. Babe will attest!) and a big time reader, but I always thought "segue" was pronounced "seeg" instead of "segway." The horror!

I also have two young kids, and my daughter, at 5 1/2, still says, rather hilariously, "mocun retroll" for remote control. So, of course, the mister and I do too;-)

A big pet peeve is inch and foot marks - they're straight up and down, people - used for apostrophes and quotation marks, which are curved. You can't always control it when writing online, but in print, pleeeeeease!

oh, i love this! until i was in college, i thought the french word "voila" was phonetic - i always said VOY-lah. It was years later i found out "wah-LAH" was the same thing. i stopped cringing about it years ago.

Phat - I had a similar gaffe with "impotent," only I meant to say "impudent." And I was referring to my father. Yikes!

In the second grade, I also described the Von Trapp children's curtain outfits as "kinky," when what I really meant was "quirky." Which left my parents very confused as to which version, exactly, of "The Sound of Music" I had just seen.

Alright, peeps. I grew up in some backwards-ass towns throughout Texas and Oklahoma and I can add a few that piss me off. Many of these come directly from my in-laws, interestingly enough...

I have heard the phrase "taken for granted" pronounced "taken for GRANITE" over and over and over again. Infuriating.

I constantly see in people's writing the phrase "must of" instead of "must have," as in "that must of been hard for you to deal with."

I don't know where this came from, but I hear people use the phrase "of a morning" a ton. People will say things like "sometimes I like to go walking of a morning." *works with evening too ("sometimes the deer come out on that field of an evening")

My mom pronounces the word "egg" like "ague" and somehow inserts a "g" into "onion" so that it comes out sounding like "ung-yun."

I have a plethora of these but these are the only ones springing into my cranium at the moment. I'm sure more will sprout up as the afternoon wears on. Good diversion.

Brie, I also used to think that "Penelope" was pronounced like "cantaloupe." And I wasn't all that sure about "Hermione" when I first read Harry Potter, either. (Guess you can tell I'm not Greek.)

I made my Mom laugh out loud the first time I said the word chameleon -- I'd only ever read it, so of course I pronounced it cha-meleon, with a "ch" sound as in "Charlie."

Ooh, I forgot to add, one thing that drives me crazy is "sanGwhich" instead of "sandwhich." I never did that, but several of my friends do and I always cringe!

I'm from southern Indiana, where apparently we mispronounce a lot of things, and a lot of my vocabulary growing up came from books, so I often didn't know how things were supposed to be pronounced, so I have a lot of these, but my biggest ones would be:
crick. I will never be able to say creek, ever. Sometimes the i sound creeps into other double ee words too. also, the so finds it absolutely hilarious that I call those big orange squashes 'punkins.'
for which, in revenge, I'm going to reveal his worst one, because even crick doesn't come close: One day we drove by some apartment buildings and he looked at one of the signs and exclaimed "I just realized B-L-D-G means building!" apparently, when he was a kid living in an apartment with his dad he thought the 'bldg' listed on his address was an actual word, so for years when people asked for his address, he'd tell them quail run apartments, blodg 12, apartment whatever. And nobody ever corrected him.

macabre

I still can't pronounce that damn word correctly

and grammer and I have never gotten along, so we won't even go there

Pet Peeve: people would say "idea-r"...there is no "r" in idea people!! drives me nuts!

Chimney, pronounced by some as "chim-a-ley", and spaghetti, "pu-sketti".

It's one thing when it's a little kid saying either of these; I'm okay with that. However, I have heard these two mispronunciations uttered from the mouths of adults. Seriously?

Oh, yeah. Living in the south, I hear "warsh" (as in "I need to warsh my hands") a lot, too.

ENHHH!!

OH, I also had my pronunciation of Isabel Allende's name corrected by a coworker once. THAT was super embarrassing. I pronounced the double-L in her last name (in my defense I took French in school, and not Spanish).

God, this thread has seriously caused me to delurk...here's another peeve. This is a Britishism, and so technically not incorrect, but drives me nuts. My Scottish husband denotes companies as plural instead of singular. For instance, I'd say "Apple makes great computers"...the company is a singular entity. He'd say "Apple MAKE great computers." I've noticed it in other British writing and speaking, but I have to resist the urge to correct him EVERY time! How can ONE company be a plural??

He says "aluminium" for aluminum as well...with a hot accent, so I try to cut him some slack.

While on a "professional" radio station I pronounced "Indicted" In-dick-ted instead of In-di-ted.

I was 2 yeas out of college and had an English minor. Not to mention the tens of people who heard me say it.

I felt like such a dick.

At least once a day when I'm on this site, I myself say Pajiba out loud correctly, because I still think of it in my head as pah-jee-bah as I first read it long ago.

I used to work with a girl who said 'ar-chives' instead of 'archives' with the hard 'c.' She worked on a journal with the word in the title and said it wrong repeatedly in conversations with the editor.

There was much debate about whether someone should correct her but, since it was much more fun for everyone else if she continued to mispronounce it, we never did. Freaking hilarious.

Is that wrong?

angelbabe: I believe aluminium is just the British way of saying aluminum. I've noticed it in places where you wouldn't expect mistakes like that, like TV shows and books. Me, I kinda wish it would catch on over here. It's a lot more fun to say "aluminium!" than plain old "aluminum."

I forgot to mention the one that makes me crazy, another from my husband and his parents.

It's not should OF or could OF, it's have people! HAVE! Should HAVE!

I can see how they get it from hearing the contraction but his mother has a Master's for chrissakes.

My friend Amiee once tried to order "colonal" strips from KFC once, she kept insisting it was pronounced co-la-nal, until the 16 year old employee asked is she meant "kernel" strips. Good times.

staramour: Until my late 20's I thought "all intents and purposes" was "all intensive purposes."

What? It's not? Well, chalk me up for not learning that until my late 40's. Thanks.

When my husband was 5, he ran into the house and told his mother, "My independence is hurting me." He couldn't understand why she laughed her butt off.

And I still pronounce Yosemite YOS-uh-mite. It's yoh-SEM-mit-tee, but I can't get it out of my head.

and of course as soon as I push post I think of 20 more. I once asked my mom if we could make 'hors devores,' and I tend to add an extra syllable to synonym to make it synononym (which I think flows better anyway).

ugh, my husband and his whole family can't seem to wrap their lips around the word bagel. It's BAYGUL not BAGGLE.
Every time they offer me a BAGGLE, it takes me a half beat to figure out what the hell they are talking about. And even when I do, I must decline as they buy them at the grocery store. Everyone knows that is just wrong.

I mispronounced chorizo sausage (korizo) to many a confused butcher before figuring out that the 'ch' is actually pronounced. In my defense I never had cause to utter this word until spending three months in Italy where it would have been pronounced with a hard C. Lo and behold the Spanish have different pronunciation rules than the Italians. Go figure.

I'm sick of hearing "Iraq" pronounced as if it were something from Apple.
I stand shamefully corrected on "awry" and "albeit", I had no idea how wrong I was about those. I used to have a big confusion about "direction", then again I blame musicians for that. Finally, for a long time I was pretty damn sure it was "Pa-jee-ba".
But as a reader from the lower half of the world, I'm not putting my dear commas inside those quotation marks.

ALSO - my third grade teacher used to mispronounce the word coupon and it would annoy the hell out of me. She'd say it like CUE-pon. AH. It's not a precursor to a pickle, it's a discount.

Mattfactor:

The phrase "of an evening" is a direct translation of how one would say it if they were speaking in old Irish (or Scottish). There are also similar variations in French and Italian. Therefore, it's not actually incorrect, it's an appropriate phrase that has become embedded in the language over generations (assuming the first generaion was translating from its native tongue). Another example would be that irish and British people say "I went to hospital" not "I went to the hospital" because the way one would say that in the original Celtic languages would not have had the equivalent of a "the".

But moving on...
I have a friend who says "that's one to save for prosperity" and refuses to be corrected.
Mr. PaddyDog has a co-worker who always says "they're going to throw me over the bus" (instead of under) which is made funnier by the fact that he's quite a large gentleman.

And worst of all, just this week, in my forties, I found out (courtesy of the never-ending primary) that Wilkes-Barre, PA is prnounced "Willsberry" not Wilks (like Milks) Bar.

I can't believe I missed this one the first time around - it's the biggest offender of my whole life and it comes from the mouths of my in-laws on a regular basis...

They say the word "retch" instead of "reach." As in, "I retched down there to pick up a hammer and blah blah blah."

My brother-in-law's answering machine message actually used to say (I swear to God I'm not kidding) - "hello, you have retched the home of ... and ..., leave us a message..."

Wow.

I always used to say "pique" like as "pick" until a guy I like corrected me that it was "peek" and I felt like an idiot.
And my sister used to always mangle the saying "Hindsight is 20/20" she would always say "Hindsight is 100%" Ha ha. We still make fun of her for that.
Also what drives me crazy is I work in insurance and I constantly get accident descriptions that say: "The person has sever pain to the left hand. Diagnosis sever left hand pain." So I'm like they have a severed left hand? But no it's SEVERE! Amazing what an "e" can do.

Oh, and thanks PaddyDog for the heads-up regarding "of an evening." I never knew that and it now makes the phrase quite enjoyable.

In the words of Casey McCall: "Remember please, if you are going out on a date and you want to impress someone, it's a 'dog eat dog world,' not a 'doggy dog world.'"

forgive me if someone already said this,
but it greatly bothers me when people say:
"for all intensive purposes" instead of
"for all intents and purposes"

Oh, I forgot the best one. When my former landlord was 15, he spent the summer with a family in Orgeon who let him drive for the first time around their farm. They had a tractor and a Volvo. At his wedding, his mother read out a letter she had kept from him where he wrote "Mrs. Stephens is really great. She lets me fool around in her vulva whenever I want."

I still cringe in embarrassment when I think of passing on a witty t-shirt-ism as a 17 year old waitress (to my manager no less). Explaining my laughter, I referred to the mention of a "vast-eh-commie".

Ah the joys of youth.

In related pet-peevitude, why oh why can't people stop with excessive apostrophe use?

As far as I'm concerned it's Pa-jee-ba. Can't say Pa-jai-ba, as I really don't like the word va-gina, so I won't say it if I can help it.

oh, since Paddy brought up town pronounciations....Native American town names abound in New England, and the first time I saw a sign for Haverhill Mass a few years ago, I prounouced it phonetically, only to be told by the Boy that it is Hay-vrill, and that if I said it my way in town I would definetly be beaten to a pulp

to this day if I am in the mood to annoy him I just repeat Have-er-hill a few times and it does the trick

Oh...and crown vs. crayon. First person that tells me both of those words sound the same gets stabbed in the neck with my car keys.

Look in the fuckin' dictionary....cray-on. Two syllables ya stupic dick nose!

1) I could care less... then corrected to I couldn't care les... made so much more sense...

2) people often mistake Jealousy and Envy... Jealousy is afraid of losing something you already have, envy is wanting something someone else has... Stop saying you're jealous of that guys boyfriend/girlfriend, it drives me nuts...

My house needs painted. My car needs washed. My shoes need tied.

[whimpers]

That makes my hair hurt.

I mispronounce crayon and say "crown." My mom always mispronounces attitude. She says "addy-tude." Whenever I got in trouble and she tried to yell at me about my bad "addy-tude" I would interrupt and correct her. It didn't really help me any, but I just couldn't resist.

HOLY SHIT I just remembered a great one...

My parents' neighbor, God bless her, has a thousand malapropisms (hammer-er instead of hamburger), but by far the best one was when she kept describing something as taking place "rectal-actively." I almost choked to death on my hammer-er.

"I couldn't care less" versus "I could care less"

One means that there is nothing you care less about - meaning you just don't care.
The other literally means the opposite and only makes sense in a sarcastic statement... which most people miss entirely.

Also, the whole trailing punctuation in quotations thing? That doesn't fly in technical documents, where every character in the quotation marks carries meaning. In those cases it is appropriate to place the period after the quote.

So here's another possibly offensive one...I used to think that the word for the offspring of a mixed race couple was "milano," and that's where they got the name for the cookie.

A friend of mine pronounced Binghamton phonetically for the first few weeks of college in Ithaca. For those not in the know, it sounds like 'bing-em-ton.'

One for the Philly locals -- it's 'Sansom Street,' not 'Sampson Street.'

Pissboy: I used to work in a call center and take info from people from Pennsyltucky. I would have to get up and take a walk after those calls because of how dumb they sounded. That made me laugh!

Last one for me, I swear - I work with a dude who regularly uses the word "unrelentless." What the hell does that mean?

Two mispronunciation stories for you:
1) When I was in college, I worked with a very attractive woman named Regina. I probably would have had more of a chance with her had I not thought her name was supposed to rhyme with "Pajiba."

2) Also in college, I went to a librarian's convention that included some very small-town librarians. I saw two of them studying the menu and overheard this conversation:
Librarian #1: "Kwitch?? What the hell is a kwitch?"
Librarian #2: "It's a French dish, sort of a cheese pie. And, uh, you probably don't want to say 'kwitch,' it makes you sound like a hick. I believe the French say 'kee-shay.'"

A lifelong sufferer of ennui, I'd somehow managed to never see it in print. I read it out loud once as "en-you-ee," sort of rhyming it with Inuit. Ugh.

to this day i get tripped up on the word "catholicism". when i was a kid, i thought "shoppe" was pronounced "shopp-y" and "hors d'oeuvres" was "whores dou-vrees". i hate it when people leave out the t's in "button"...it's not a "buh'un". and i thought it was "puh-jee-bah" too.

Skeggjold - the word mischievous made me lose a spelling bee in the 6th grade because the asshole moderator pronounced it "mis chee vee us" - now, who is not going to add an "i" before the "ous" when you hear it pronounced like that???!!! If only he had pronounced it "mis chu vus" I might be president today.

I did not notice mispronunciations at all until I moved to Kentucky. People here say some crazy shit. For example, 99% of the population says "welp" instead of "welt" and use it in a sentence like so: "I got stung by a bee and it welped up on me".

99% of the population here also says "ideal" when they should say "idea". I can't count how many times I have heard someone say "I have no ideal" or "I have a great ideal".

I have a million of these and unfortunately this type of thing is my biggest pet peeve ever! Here are some more classics . . . "medium" instead of "median", as in "He drove his car up on the medium" . . . . "curve" instead of "curb", as in "He drove his car up over the curve" . . . "window seal" instead of "window sill" (it's not the southern accent, I have seen it written like that!)

I'll have to come back when I think of more!

Oh, this is one of my favorite things, I especially love malapropisms, where you intentionally change a word to another similarly sounding word in order to be funny/silly. Anywho, here are several that I came up with:
When I was little and my mother had friends over, I was trying to be the hospitable little hostess and said, "Please, sit down and make yourselves convertible." I think I bawled when they couldn't stop laughing at me!
S. Pisaster - I am from the south, and I absolutely abhor it when people say crick! I mean, what the hell is a crick? I'm looking out the window right now at a creek, however...
Peachfish - my mema was famous for her silly pronunciation, Jebus love her. She used to say "parmeeesean" and "I-talian" as well. It was generally only with the 'foreign' items, and like she was trying to learn italian, but failing miserably. Also, my mother says euthanaze instead of euthanize. I used to work with a weird chick who tried to use the term versus a lot, but could only manage to say vices. That was PAINFUL. Ugh.
My two biggest grammar peeves, however, are supposedly (not supposably, dammit!), and the way some people (mostly northerners in my experience, especially Ohioans?) say "that dress needs cleaned" or "my car needs fixed". What the hell? You dropped the entire conjugation of the verb! Did yuo skip 5th grade or something?

tt-marie:

"weird" is Samuel Johnson's cruel little joke I think. We spend our entire childhoods being told "i before e except after c" and then along comes "weird", not a "c" in sight. I call foul.

This one's for my mama:

No matter how many times over the years I've corrected her, my mom refuses to pronounce ramen any other way than "ray-min."
Drives me up the fuckin wall sideways.

As a kid, I had a hard time not pronouncing the L in "salmon." I still hate that word. Same goes for "salve." Stupid L pisses me off.

wait, Almonds are pronounced Ahmonds???? wh-what?

Also, I totally did not know about the whole "begs the question" bit - holy crap, I don't even understand the explanation! I'm never using it again.

Thought of another pair: as a kid, I would insist that the "Angelican" (rhymes with "Pelican") Church was closely associated with the "Episcupelian" Church.

It's no wonder that I minored in Linguistics. I had to, just to figure out what the hell was going on.

"Flesh it out" versus "flush it out"; I don't like the word "flesh" but I'm almost positive "flush it out" is wrong, and one of my editorial directors uses it all the time.

A teacher of mine used to say "intensive purposes" rather than "intents and purposes" (thankfully, not an English teacher). I hate her. She should eat nails.

Someone above listed the use of "impact" as a verb. That sucks. Kill that person.

I will admit I call it PUH-JEE-BAH too. *hides head in shame*
However, I will not rhyme it will vagina. I'm SORRY! I am going to still call it PUH-JEE-BAH.

To the person who said 'epitome' like it rhymed with 'epitone'--ROCK ON! I had to read a clue in Trivial Pursuit with 'epitome' in it and I guess I hadn't seen it written enough to know that 'epitome' wasn't spelled 'epitomy'. To this day, my family STILL makes fun of me for it(and this was at least three years ago).

Irregardless also drives me crazy--it may be in the urban dictionary but it is still NOT A REAL WORD. It's REGARDLESS for fucks sake!!!!

I still don't know how to correctly pronounce gyro. When I first moved to the big city and went to the greek restaurant up the street, the employees said "ge-ro" (with a hard g, not gee-ro like gee whiz) as rhyming with hero. But it seems that most people I talk to actually say "hero" or even "yee-ro" for gyro. Did they learn it that why because they frequent a different greek restaurant where the employees have different accents?

I thought Hermione was pronounced Hermoyne.

WITH VAGINA! God I need to read before I hit post...and yeah, it's in caps...

Oh, and it wasn't until I had to describe the symptoms of an ingrown toe infection that I realized that it is Pus, not Puss...not pussy. Now I just write pus-filled when needed.

My peeves mostly come from my husband-unit. He insists on saying hepa, as in hepa filter, as "HEEEpa." Helicopter is "HEEElocopter." I don't know why it bugs me so, but I just grit my teeth and keep my yap shut when he does it.

A few years ago there was a tv ad campaign for (I think) Jack in the Box and their bruschetta sandwiches. They kept pronouncing it "brew-shhhhetta" which totally grates my nerves as I'm fluent in Italian. I'd scream at the tv or radio every single time I heard it. Why am I wound so tight about tomatoes on bread?

Say it with me:
"Brew-sKetta"

So I'm from Missouri and my mom is from Mississippi. I now live in Boston and my boyfriend is a Mass-hole. Between him and my mom, I have a ton of mispronunciations to gripe about, but I'll just name a few:

My mom always refered to a "chest of drawers" as "chester drawers." She also can't pronounce Massachusetts or salmon (she calls it simon).

My boyfriend says "idear" instead of "idea" and calls a "drawer" a "drah." His aunt can't say geneaolgy and always calls it a "gee-an-ology." Morons.

1. My biggest pet peeve in writing is people who write "should of" instead of "should have" (or other variations of this same damn mistake.

2. My fiance constantly tries to tease me about a word that I still insist I'm saying correctly and she insists I'm not. The word is "often" which she believes is pronounced "off-en" but which I always pronounce the T. What say you Pajibans?

I pronounced facade as fa-kade when reading it. I knew how to say in when speaking but never realized it was the same word any time I read it. I also badly mangled echelon by pronouncing it as ek-a-lon. I was recently corrected by my wife for pronouncing museum as mu-zim and not the proper of mu-zee-um. She is a bit of a grammar nazi so I guess I will take her word for it.

My younger siblings used to refer to the lawn mower as a "mow lawn" and it almost made me fratricidal.

Also, my grasp on the rules that govern comma placement is tentative at best.

Ears? I always heard it as, "Do your boobs hang low, . . ." Makes a bit more sense, actually.

If I hear W say NUKE-U-LAR one more time, to the moon, Alice. It's easy to remember because if you swap the first two letters "nuclear" becomes "unclear."

I had a boyfriend who corrected me that celery was "sell-ree," when I had been saying "sal-uh-ree." Scew you, and make your own damned tuna salad.

My father uses a "tr" sound instead of "thr" and a "d" instead of "th," so it comes out like "Give me tree dem der cookies." I sometimes slip into that mode of speech when I visit....

My grandma regularly butchered words. She took us to see "Jur-uh-sick Park" when it came out in the theater. Semi unrelated, but she also was amazingly tolerant of cursing, such as when my 4 year old cousin, who had a speech impediment, asked for ice cream, and my grandma's response was, "Ass cream? What do you need ass cream for? What's wrong with your ass?"

I absolutely hate it when people say "orientated." "Oriented" works just fine.

I also hate it when people say "once and a while." Makes no frigging sense.

Nice one on the TV ad mispronunciations, krix. Several years ago I saw a horribly grating, locally made ad for some discount-furniture outlet where the announcer kept informing us that they were having a clearance sale on "bedroom suits [suites]."

Also, MattFactor, "of a morning" or "of an evening" is a very Irish expression. So it's possible it just translated overseas and became a colloquialism. (Which I'm nearly 100% I just spelled wrong. Womp womp.) I also remembered that when I lived in London, I found out how to pronounce queue. I used to pronounce it as "qway" instead of "Q." Whoops.

I remembered one more:

"Palast Indians" instead of Palestinians... whew that was embarrassing in grade 9 History...

Dustin, thank you for making making an exception for "foreigners".

I was taught to put punctuation marks inside of quotation marks, if the punctuation is part of the quotation. Otherwise, even when using commas and periods, they should be placed outside the quotes.

Blame the Queen.

On another note, my name is a pretty good test of people's basic spelling skills.
"What's your name?"
"Celery."
"How do you spell that?"
"Like the vegetable."
Blank stare.

Oh Krix:

I feel your pain. Once I was in a (very pricey) restaurant in DC with my then boss who was born and raised and still living in Rome. He asked for bruschetta (as it should be pronounced) and the waiter gave him a patronizing sigh and told him "it's Brushetta actually". We left and he refused to pay for the drinks we had up until then.

Hey, Angelbabe

I think the "Aluminum" vs. "Aluminium" is a case where you're either both right, or all Americans are wrong. I seem to recall that the original patent on aluminium was British and had the extra "i". When the patent was registered in the U.S. a clerk acidentall dropped the second "i" and created aluminum.

I hate, hate, hate it when people say "I could care less". It's couldn't care less, people! If you "could care less" you're implying that you do actually care since there is a lesser level of caring you could drop to.

Sheesh.

I'm not saying I'm perfect, by any stretch, but I actually derive some sort of perverse pleasure in intentionally mispronouncing some of these words that rile y'all up. "Idear" is one of my favorites. Also, "pair-uh-diggum" and "warsh." Pretty much anything on the list here. But I say it with a smirk, and in the right company...This makes me sound like a tool.

hmmm... on my screen, my post is mashed in with three others and then cut off. here's all and only what I meant to post. Feel free to delete the first one.

Dustin, thank you for making making an exception for "foreigners".

I was taught to put punctuation marks inside of quotation marks, if the punctuation is part of the quotation. Otherwise, even when using commas and periods, they should be placed outside the quotes.

Blame the Queen.

On another note, my name is a pretty good test of people's basic spelling skills.
"What's your name?"
"Celery."
"How do you spell that?"
"Like the vegetable."
Blank stare.

The most common mistake is "cellery", but you would be surprised how many people over ten think that celery starts with an s and/or contains an a.

Here's one . . . I thought that piece of furniture that is in your bedroom, the tall one with all the drawers, was called "Chester Drawers", not chest of drawers. Chester being a proper noun, Chester Drawers, like Wurlitzer Piano . I was 20 before I found out it was called a chest of drawers!

How boring this world would be if everybody pronounced everything the same way and used English uniformly. It's things like "need washed" that makes regionalism so interesting. Also, how awesome is it that "pants" and "fanny" mean something totally different in the U.K.? Thus, I'm going to admit my legitimate mistakes rather than pick on other people (for once).

My offenses:

-I thought "precipitous" meant rainy until very recently.

-I did not know what sublime meant until I was about 25. I steered clear of the word and cringed whenever I saw it and, yet, never bothered to investigate what it meant.

-I, too, pronounced aw-rie as aw-ree for years. I misspelled "a lot" until I hit my junior year of college.

-I cannot say the word "brewery."

tt_marie- I live in Pittsburgh and people here say that stuff all the time and it drives me crazy!! I have gotten into arguments with people here who are sure that they are right! Your room needs TO BE cleaned! Not needs cleaned! I just think it makes a person sound like a fool.

My sister used to pronounce the 't' in Chevrolet.

My mother-in-law says Pee-nyoh Knee-ar instead of Pinot Noir. It really makes me want to rip her face off. She also can't say narcissistic. She says "narcisstic."

My mother says JurassTic Park instead of Jurassic Park. She's done this for 15 years now.

Both my mother and father use "is" instead of "are." They say, "Is there any more corn?"

I often confuse "was" and "were," although I'm getting better at it.

1. chamois, I said 'sha-moise'
2. hors d'oeurvres, 'whores dee vores'
3. while in Canada, the table d'hote (should be said table doh or something french), I knew the table was not pronounced like the American 'table' but I had no clue for the d'hote part. I butchered it until the waitress corrected me.

As you can see, I have issues with French.

I used to pronounce facade like arcade. Because, you know, that's how it's spelled. It wasn't until high school when my then girlfriend was like "what did you say? It's fa-sahd," and then proceeded to mock me mercilessly.

I also used to pronounce wound like wownd. Because, again, that's how it's spelled. I still do it on occasion. Worst is when one of my college professors corrected me.

Fuck the English language. I'm an English major, too. Go figure.

Words: I said 'ethereal' as 'erethral' (aka, almost 'urethral') for yeeeeears, which is a particularly unfortunate disparateness of meaning.

Idiom: Just recently found out it's "all intents and purposes," not "all intensive purposes." That one made me feel stupid.

I was born February fifth, and as a wee one, I couldn't pronounce either of these. My family, however, thought this was hilarious. So everytime they came over, they would always ask me when I was born, to which I would reply:
"Fairy Berry Five".

God my Mom's a bitch. But it's genetic, so I love her.

Okay, I can't stop. There's a pretty famous Irish writer called Oliver St. John Gogarty and one can always tell which US tourists do not watch Masterpiece Theatre because they ask for "Oliver-Saint-John-Gogarty's house" instead of "Oliver Singin Gogarty's house". Similarly, if you're all paying attention: the family name Beauchamp is pronounced Beecham". And Worcestershire sauce? It's "wooster sauce". Don't blame me. Blame the Normans. And yes, I posted this commnent just to be able to put as many periods as I could outside of quotation marks.

Ooh, got another. My best friend used to explode on people when they pluralized Cracker Jack. In his words (after the calming): "You do not have 'Cracker Jacks.' You have boxes of Cracker Jack."

He also used to get really upset when others would add an 's' to words like forward (forwards), backward (backwards) and toward (towards). Admittedly, that still bothers me a little.

Couple of funny ones:

I always pronounced aclimatized as a-clit-a-mized. A very horrified mother had to correct me on that one.

My wife always pronounced pseudonym as poseidon. Wasn't until two years ago (when the remake of Posiedon's Adventure released) that I pointed out this gaffe to her.

PaddyDog--

I still call it "Worchestersheestershustershire..." sauce, (usually with random added syllables) because of Bugs Bunny. Yeah, I know how to say it, but Bugs' way is way more fun.

Same thing with "ignoranimus" for "ignoramus" and "ma-roon" for "moron."

Who says cartoons aren't a bad influence?

I'm the same way. I enjoy pronouncing things in alternate or outright incorrect ways. "ARE'inge" instead of "OR'inge". Hard-G "gerrymander". "Re-NAY-sahns" rather than "REN-ih-sahns."

Someone once told me this, and my rudimentary understanding of latinate languages made me believe him: It is incorrect to ask for "a biscotti" because "biscotti" is plural.

I also read that there's a law on the books stating the correct pronunciation of Arkansas. My dad joked that it was a completely justifiable pronunciation, and that the true pronunciation of that other state was "Kan-zaw"

Et cetera. That is how it is pronounced. I can usually stop my fist right before it hits the face of a person who says "et cetra", but all bets are off if anyone says "ek cetra" or "ek cetera".

Websearch "Dialect Survey" for some interesting pronunciations and phrases around the United States. I'd never heard it before I read the survey, but now every time it rains when the sun is shining I pronounce that "The devil is beating his wife"

People correct me all of the time for saying "Hand me the scissor" instead of "scissors." "Pair of scissors" is fine, but how can you use "a" with a plural object? I may be wrong, but it seems reasonable to me.

"One of our major downtown streets is Carnegie Avenue. Now, I realize that dictionaries list two pronunciations as acceptable, but it drives me fucking nuts when people pronounce it "car-NAY-gee." Fucking NUTS!

Is there anywhere else in the country where this pronunciation is prevalent? Certainly not near Carnegie Hall or Carnegie Mellon."

All of my friends from Pittsburgh put the emphasis on the middle syllable. As that's essentially where Andy C. spent much of his time, I tend to think that was the intended pronunciation. I emphasize the first syllable when saying "Carnegie Hall" because I live in NYC, but I'm pretty sure that's wrong.

One thing in NYC that gets on my nerves: when people lose their damn minds if somebody mispronounces "How-ston Street" as "Hyoo-ston Street." Give me a break - it's spelled "Houston" and Houston the city is a hell of a lot bigger and well-known than Houston the street. It's just total snobbery.

BWeaves - I have checked multiple dictionaries, and most offer both pronunciations as correct. I just wanted Pajiba opinion I suppose...

FrumpieFox:

That is brilliant. I would never question the wisdom of Bugs Bunny on these matters.

On a related note, does anyone know what the threshold is for a mis-pronunciation becoming acceptable because it has been become part of the common speech? Is it widespread use? Numbers of years in use? I'm thinking of the way Americans pronounce "baroque" or the way Irish or British people pronounce "filet". Anyone?

I'm sure I have a ton of these considering I had to take speech therapy three times a week starting at the age of three because I had what the doctors called a "lazy tongue."

In Austin, there is a street called Manchaca. Pronounced:"Man-chack". Stupid Texans. Why the hell do you put an "A" at the end if it's not there to be pronounced?!

Also, the auto repair shop that says their name is Sa-LAY-zar.... dood, it's SAL-a-zar. Saying it different doesn't make you any less Mexican.

When I was 7 my parents decided that perhaps we should celebrate the four Sundays of advent at home. The best part (for my 7-year-old self) was that I got to read aloud from the book of instructions. Until one night when I came across the words "Now, let us all sing a hymn" and read aloud "Now, let us all sing a hymen."

It was a few years before I found out what my parents found so damn funny.

"Actually 'me and so and so' is right."

Depends on wherre it is in the sentence:

"Me and so and so went to the park"--no!

"Harry met me and so and so at the park"--yes!

hehehe kellee, the "rural juror"

that 30 Rock could carry an entire episode on two words was genius

samantha t,

The Houston/Houston Street is actually interesting, and I don't think it's snobbery to call things by their proper name. They were named after 2 different people, both with a lot of history behind them, and while Houston Street is a corrupted spelling of the original name (Houstoun), it predates the naming of the city of Houston by more than 2 decades. Whatever, I think it's pretty cool...

I learned all this the other day. Some tourist asked for directions to HoUUUUUston Street so I had to kill him. I figured the next time someone asked directions to HoUUUUUston Street I could explain his or her error using some cold hard facts before assisting in his or her demise.

David - I was merely pointing out that it's not some ridiculous error in pronunciation. It's perfectly reasonable to think "How-ston" is pronounced "Hyoo-ston." Mind you, I'm writing as somebody who absolutely refuses to pronounce "Budapest" as "Buda-pescht", so precision isn't really my thing.

Luckily for me, most of my mispronounced words are in my head, because I read them over and over again and don't usually say them out loud. (My high school isn't exactly filled with the sharpest knives in the drawer, you know?)Case in point: Canapes.
Until last year I was convinced they were can-a-pees. Classy, huh?

I never had trouble with Hermione, but around the time I was reading the fourth book my sister laughed at me when I said Ginny like guinea.

Lastly, I once attempted to date a kid that lived in New Gloucester. Imagine my chagrin when my mother and friends laughed at me for asking how far New Gloo-kester was. It didn't work out.

When I was a kid, we had a babysitter who mangled the language all the time. My dad nearly choked to keep from laughing when she said her sister was in the hospital for testes (tests). And my brother and I walked in a walky-thorn(walkathon).

One thing that bothers me is when people use the ___ and I/me incorrectly. "Paul and I went to the store is correct," but "the package was delivered to Paul and me." Trying to explain that "me" is correct when it is the object of the preposition and "I" is correct when it is the subject in a sentence is just too much for some people to understand.

OMG how many people say be "Pacific" instead of SPECIFIC. My ex used to do that it drove me NUTS!

Erin--

"Can-a-pees" is acceptable! (Well, maybe not in France, but in the US, anyway.) :) I called them "ca-napes" (like "tapes") for years, figuring "can-a-pees" can't possibly be right....

Although I get laughed at all the time, I insist on saying it is thundering and lightninging . I still think I am right and the rest of the world has no idea what they are talking about.

I had my share of 'never heard it said, only read it' mistakes as a kid ('ginger' with a hard middle g, 'mie-zeld' for 'misled'), but as an (ostensible) grownup, if I don't know a word, I'll look up the pronunciation before I try it. How smug am I? ;-)

I do get annoyed by the grammatical and spelling errors others make (& I hate when I mistype and make them myself - but that's my fingers, not my brain...) I'm a total bitch about misplaced apostrophes, and I think 'bored of' is an abomination. Don't even get me started on people who write 'phased' for 'fazed', and supermarkets with queues for 'five items or less' (it's 'fewer', you dimwitted arseholes!!)
Well hell, I'm getting old... I have to find my fun somewhere!

My favouritest ever grammar correction was the English professor who, correcting a line in a pupil's essay which read:
'she crashed down the stairs and lay prostitute at the bottom',
commented that the pupil needed to learn the difference between a fallen woman, and one who has merely tripped...

*it's not PA JEE BA?

*I will still put a "g" in onion as in ung-yun

*I commented to my mom when I was in the fifth grade that the sky looked very "omni us" and then got pissed when she laughed at me.

When I was a kid I repeatedly called people "Eye-dots" because some how the second "i" in "idiot" was invisible to me. No-one ever corrected me because they had no idea of what I was trying to say!

Paddydog,
Another one is 'Cholmondeley' - pronounced 'Chumley'.
And my favourite 'upperclass name pronounced totally fucking different from the way it is spelled, dammit!' is: Featherstonehaugh.
That's 'Fanshaw', to his pals.

My theory is that the aristos were drunk so much of the time that the slurred pronunciations of their names became standard!

I thought interpretate was a word FOREVER. it made total sense to me. Interpretation ----- Interpretate.

No. not a word.
Level of embarrassment when I was told the word is interpret? - high.

These are halarious.
Some of mine:
For the longest time I thought 'hello' was spelled 'hellow'. I argued rounds with my father about that in 8th grade. I also said 'pacific' instead of 'specific' and the first few times I read the word 'ocean' I had no idea what it was. "Ockeean? What the hell is an ockeean?"

Mr. Vivian is French and while he speaks English better then most people I've met he has a bad habbit of adding an 's' where it dosent belong.
Good examples?
"Lets make pastas tonight"
"I need to fill out the paperworks"
"We need to get some new frunitures for the house"

And since my grammer is horrible (as many word/grammer nazi's have already realized by reading this post) I cant even explain to him, logically, why he shouldnt add an 's'. I mean, it is plural, but it just isn't right!

Le Sigh.

My personal best: saying Ah-RIS-toh-faynes instead of Air-is-toff-an-ees (Aristophanes), at the age of 25, to a group of high school honors students. genius!

My college roommate's best and brightest: saying "weary" when she meant either "wary" or "leary".

Well if we're broadening the category into stupid things people say because they think they're being eloquent, can somebidy please stop the world from inserting "go ahead" into sentences where it's not needed? PLEASE?

All day long I hear people saying "I'm going to go ahead and give you a bag with that" or "After you caulk the bath tub, you can go ahead and seal it" or "when you've filled out that form, you can go ahead and line up for the test" or "now we've washed your hair, we can go ahead and cut it". Why people? Why?

Hey Thejodester -- how about "relator" for realtor?

Also, my ears bleed when I hear somebody say "where you at?".

Sorry -- guess the "relator" one was taken earlier in the thread!! I'm reading too fast for my own good!

Pissboy: My step-father (who is from Pennsylvania) does the "that car needs washed" thing. What's worse is that this usage has somehow transferred to my normally very-correct mother (who is from the Philippines). I used to correct them on it every time, but it never helped. Now I live away from home and try to forget.

And Julie: Where I'm studying now, in Lancaster, England, it is LAN-cas-ter.

I'm usually a stickler for accurate pronunciation, but the one I always get wrong is "subsequently". I stress the second syllable instead of the first. I can catch myself if I have a second to think about it, but have never corrected the problem completely.

I used to pronounce 'chastised' as 'chatsized'. I read The Giver when I was eight or nine and I never heard it spoken, and it just kind of fermented in my head so that even later when I learned how to read good my brain just kind of skipped over it.

And currently, I have a professor who pronounces 'chasm' with the soft 'ch'. I cringe every, single, time.

Wow, something about writing a post about words made it incredibly hard to type.

Remembered a couple more:

In southern Idaho, probably 80 percent of people pronounce "Italian" as EYE-talian. I said it as a joke for awhile until one day I accidentally said it seriously, and then I had to stop.

My mom was a radio reporter, and for her very first broadcast, she reported from Tuck-son, Arizona.

One of my co-workers writes a blog, and one of our older co-workers asked if he was "still messin' around with that bloog."

I once saw a poster that read "baroque is when you are out of Monet."

I once saw a poster that read "baroque is when you are out of Monet."

Goddammit, that made me laugh out loud. I am way too easily amused.

agelbabe:
I'm geeking out here, but technically, aluminium is correct. Aluminium is an element, and an -ium ending is standard for many elements (e.g. Helium, Sodium, etc). I believe the confusion of the names goes back to the fact that one person identified existence of the base metal, and called it aluminum, while the scientist who first isolated the metal called it "aluminium".
I do believe the US is the only country to call it aluminum. I don't know why-probably for the same reason we use standard instead of metric units.

As for mispronounciations, I gre up on the west coast, and so in moving to New York, and living in a Jewish neighborhood, I saw something called gefilte fish in the store. I had no idea how to rponounce it and was too embarrassed to ask my roommate. I think I was inclined to think it was pronounced "gel fielt" with a soft g.

"gefelta"? with a hard g? who would have known that?

I too am guilty of the Penelope/cantaloupe mix-up, which I've been teased for in the past. I also got laughed at for inexplicably pronouncing "triumph" as "tree-um-fah". It only happened once.

I'm surprised no one has ranted about people who mangle "schedule". My high school principal used to come on the PA and repeate "schhhhheshhhhule" until I was cringing in my seat.

I also knew a girl who said "cli-TOR-us", which, to me, makes it sound like a small pink dinosaur.

And incorrect pronounciation of French words gives me facial tics. "Niche" and "foyer" do not rhyme with "itch" and "lawyer". Don't even get me started on "clique".

My best friend from childhood has TONS of these:

Baffroom for bathroom

Breffist for breakfast

Tivvy for t.v.

Pannacake for pancake

Skeddle for schedule

Coucha for couch (or possibly sofa, or maybe the bastard love child of the two)

Reasy for receipt

Coopin for coupon

There are tons more, as she says weird stuff all the time, but those are the ones I can think of right now. She's honestly not retarded; she's very bright. There's just some crazy mysterious thing that happens between her brain and her mouth. Some of them come from her parents (they're from Nebraska; maybe it's regional?) but many are her own creations.

I was originally saying Paheeba, when I first got here.
My mother in law says aDvocado instead of avocado, but maybe she's a heavy drinker. ;)
My family likes to say *casting nasturtiums* instead of aspersions, but that's totally a choice we made. :)

I pronounced appellate as apple-et. In a law school class.

I lost an 8th grade Scholars Bowl competition because I pronounced "Persephone" "Phosepherone" which is shameful for a nerd like me...

I knew a thorough jackass who argued angrily that they are hard 'c's in scythe and sceptre. He got very annoyed when I had said they were silent 'c's.
I hope he says those words often.

Best diversion ever! My pronunciation is always flawless, but most of what has already been mentioned drive me buggy. One of my tops is "it's deja vu all over again."

GRRR.

I always thought unison was pronounced as if it rhymed with munition.

We did a unit on ancient greek myths at highschool, and I thought Persephone was Purse-a-phone, not Per-sef-a-nee, and was of course loudly corrected by my teacher in front of everyone.

Don't know why, but when I was a kid, I thought the word pervert was actually P-Bird. So when they boys would try to look up our dresses or whatever (what's wrong with little boys?!!) I would angrily tell them to stop being P-Birds.

My pet grammatical peeve is gratuitous use of quotation marks. Eg I walk past this restaurant everyday that has a blackboard out the front which reads: Come to ____'s, "Really Fresh Food"!. And I pass a hairdresser that invites one to go in: Come in for a "Haircut".

In trying to type those signs I've probably gotten my own grammar all wrong, but whatevs!!

1. I work in a bank. If I hear one more person ask for a withdrawal from thier checkINS account I will beat them into a vegetative state with my three hole punch!
2. My dad frequently tells me to "be quite" instead of "be quiet". Words cannot express. Physical violence, maybe.
3. I cannot say Worcestershire. In my head I know it's horrendously wrong, but it comes out as "wore-chester-shire" everytime. I sound like such an ass.

A new one that I *hate* is appearing in the corporate world. I first heard it around 2000:

The plural of "process" as "processeez."

I see where it comes from: They're confusing the method for pluralizing "-sis" as "-ses," like "analysis/analyses," but the "-sis" ("-ses," actually) in "processes" is ALREADY the PLURAL, so it's redundant, stupid, wrong-headed pretentiousness on the part of undereducated MBAs. As I've come to expect from them.

"If it's not Baroque, don't fix it!"

Embarrassing admission: I think it's because the veddy British Cogsworth in Beauty and the Beast always pronounced it as ba-roke, I presumed the entire British population did as well. That's the last time I take elocution lessons from an animated clock voiced by an American actor. David Ogden Steirs, I'm coming for you for making me look dumb in front of PaddyDog.

La Jolla.

I knew there was a place in California called "La Hoya," but being an ignorant, caucasian east-coaster who learned French through college, I am ashamed to say that I made it into my mid-twenties thinking that La Hoya must be a nickname for some place (like SoHo) because it sure as hell wasn't on any map.

One of my students wrote in a paper that George Bush was "incontinent" rather than "incompetent." Hee! I laughed for a good hour, and debated whether or not to correct him.

coveredinbees, I had forgotten that was in Beauty and the Beast!

I knew there was a reason I liked that movie. you know, besides the soothing voice of Angela Landsbury

Heehee, Jenna, your biscotti/biscotto comment reminded me of a great Wayne & Shuster bit set in a bar in ancient Rome:

"Bartender, give me a martinus."

"Don't you mean martini?"

"Hey, if I wanted more than one, I would have said so!"

As for my contribution, I used to think debris was pronounced "DER-biss." Oh, and this is pretty embarassing--in grade five, the story we were reading described a character as an "invalid." Teacher asked if anyone knew what that meant. Well, I confidently raised my hand and stated that it meant he was "not a valid person."

Nice.

Word to the "my house needs painted" ire. I went to college in central PA and that always made my whole body hurt. After bringing this up a couple of times to friends who did it and were otherwise fairly intelligent, I would just mutter "to be" whenever they said "my clothes need washed." I am sure they thought I was unhinged, but really it was a way to stay sane.

We just had a Basil-herb vs. Basil-name argument at work yesterday which naturally led to an Herb-plant vs. Herb-name debate.

Finally, Two words I cannot say: "calculator." I don't know why. It always comes out "calkylator" and "circuitous," which I don't even try to say anymore.

I just looked up the original meaning of moot and it rocked my world. I always thought it meant something was settled, or useless to discuss further. Its original meaning is open for debate. Grr

Misuse of "myself" drives me batty! Only use the word to demonstrate action that the subject perfomed on the subject. Correct: "I hit myself." Incorrect: "John, Sally and myself went to the store." that shoudl be "John, Sally and I went to the store." Thank you very much for your attention to this matter.

My sister started college the same day I started kindergarten, so for years, I thought "tuition" was actually two words: "To wishin'!" As in "I am wishin' for some money!"

Other good ones from my childhood: OR-i-GAN-al for original, and BAY-nal for banal.

Oh, and I had a friend when I was little who thought that cucumbers were called "cumbers," bananas were called "buddies," and potato chips and dip were "table chips and drip." But I think that's just cute little kid talk.

Rachel! You mean I'm not the only one that pronounced crayon as "crown"?! *tears up a little* I did it until the 4th grade when my best friend corrected me...I called her a liar and continued to pronounce it that way for another week. Then my teacher corrected me in class, nice!

My grandparents were from the GA and they moved to OR when my mom was a lot younger. I lived with them for the first 8 years of my life and I pronounce certain words the southern way even though I've never been there...Although I had it when people pronounce the wash "warsh". I freak out sometimes.

I'm also noticing a lot of people on Pajiba who had high reading levels as children and screwed up words because of that. Me too! I loved it, seriously.

I also just learned that wanton is not pronounced like the soup. Well...I'll be damned.

Carolina! That's what sparked my idea for this diversion in the first place! For whatever reason, I have always read "BIO-pic" as "bi-AH-pic" to rhyme with "myopic." D'oh!

A huuuuuuge pet peeve of mine is the way my beastly roommate adds "n" to things that don't end in "n" or don't have one to begin with. For example, "leggings," as in "I bought some new leggins!" Also: HUMMUS. Fer Christ's sake.... "I can't talk right now, I'm eating my hummuns." Blergh.

Hey, you guys know that stuff you use in electronics? That soft, melty metal you can join components together with?

I'm a 30 year old Aussie and I only JUST realised that when Americans were saying "sodder" on TV, they actually meant "SOL-der" (which is exactly how we pronounce it).

I really hate it when people misuse "hardly" by saying "not hardly."

Example:
Person 1: Did Huckabee win the Republican nomination?
Person 2: Not hardly.

It should be "Hardly" or it's a double negative. Grrr. I especially hate reading this in a book said by a supposedly intelligent and educated character.

Things I still forget about:

Bass English Pale Ale. "Bass" as in the clef, or the fish?

Basil - pronounced "Bay-sil" or "Bass(the fish)-il"?

Goddamnit.

OK, so I have to make fun of my Dad because he says Huge without pronouncing the "h". I can't figure that one out.

Also, anyone who has been in the military hears the word diligent more often than most. A group of us used to die laughing every time our platoon sergeant told us to make sure we were "digilent".

Oh, I have a list.

As a child playing Monopoly, I used to pronounce Virginia as Virgina - hard i sound. My dad would blush and my mother would laugh hysterically.

In my university English classes, I mispronounced "gaol" and "inevitable." Gaol with a hard G, and inevitable as ina-VIT-able. Hilarity ensued.

My mother insists on pronouncing vitamin as VIT-amin, and my father always pronounced film as fill-um.

I always end up saying "verocious" instead of "ferocious" because I think it has more of an onomatopoetic effect. "Ferocious" sounds too cute and cuddly, whereas something "vrrrrr-ing" is much more aggressive. Of course, this is less a mispronunciation than it is a decision to shun the English language.

Wow I lurked in the shadows on this website for years, but in the last week I've posted twice- thanks to a Dresden Files thread conversation and now my embarrassing story about "facade". I spent all of middle school and half of high school saying the word "Fah-cade" (so that it sounded like the "-cade" in "arcade"....right up until my buddy Matt overheard me one day in front of about 80 other people (that's the sometimes-drawback to being in the band- too many witnesses) and goes "That's "Fah-sahd" you idiot. Ahh...the hell that was high school.

Pronouncing "preventive" preventative bothers the poop right out of me.

Also, people who think "poignant" means "pointed" instead of "bittersweet" as in "Ricky made a poignant comment when he was jabbed in the anus after he dropped the soap in the prison shower." Well, I guess maybe both meanings make sense there.

A common one I get from my friend is 'axe.' As in, 'I AXED her to come out and play, but she was unable to respond due to the fact that I'd just cut off her head." Asked, my dear. You asked.

The worst experience was in my first-year criminology class. A pink girl (pink laptop, pink hairtie, pink bag, cellphone, notebook, pen - pink everything) was doing a presentation on white-on-black hoaxes. Only she had somehow ended up at university without knowing how to pronounce hoax, so I had to endure fifteen minutes of 'white on black hoaxeses...hoaxeses...hoaxeses' without trying to laugh too hard. I wasn't alone in my efforts. She also said, 'perpentrator'. Classic.

Someone made this mistake above, and I will not have it: the word is rappel. With an A. An A!!!! I live near mountains, and climbing is a popular hobby, and pretty much every single person I've ever heard use the word says re-pel, which is a real word, but the wrong one. One re-pels undesirable things (such as sieges and assaults) but ra-ppels down cliffs.
the "needs cleaned" construction is used here; I'd never heard it before I moved here, and it baffled me the first few times I heard it; I thought the people using it were deliberately trying to sound stupid, and I couldn't figure out why.

Of course it's pronounced "ba-roke". If it was supposed to be "ba-rock", WFMT program hosts would say so.....

Having been raised listening to that national treasure, I pretty much missed out on the mispronunciation screw-ups.

But hey, Monet is what makes the Van Gogh.....

Oh, and my lovely cat, currently sleeping on top of the monitor, is named Basil (Fawlty Towers anyone?), and it is pronounced Bass-il. Bay-sil is an herb. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

The "knicker knocking" activity is known as "ding, dong, ditch" 'round these parts. Much harder to confuse with certain racial epithets, AND, it's triple alliterative!

My own personal mispronunciational best comes from sophomore english in high school. For some damned reason, I was giving a speech about the Book of Job. About seven words into this speech, I pronounce the name "Job" like the name "Bob" (church, what? Sunday school, whaaat?!?) and the teacher, a hyper-religious lunatic of the finest vintage (which probably explains how a public school english class ended up spending a month studying the saving graces of Jesus) damn near choked on her own disbelief. Seriously. There was this weird sputtering, coughing sound, and then her grating, I'm-half-a-breath-away-from-a-cackle voice piped up, "It's JOE-BUH!"

To which I responded: "Whatever. *dismissive hand flip*"

Oooh, to have the balls of a teenager!

.....I mean.........nevermind.

How you pronounce "often", "almond" and so on depends if you are, or are not, a mumbler. A lot of the variations listed above obviously started when someone found the original slightly hard to pronounce, and decided to slurr it. Salmon with the "l" is the older form, so no need to be ashamed. (In Canada, we usually pronounce salmonella with all the "l"s.)

Speaking of mumbling, what about Feh-boo-ary (it's Feh-brew-ary) and sam-wich (sand-wich)?

Oh my God, that SAM-wich. When the local radio stations started advertising McDonald's SAM-wiches, I burned up my phone line complaining.

I thought it was some idiot ad imported from the States. But no, it was a Canadian broadcaster who is actually paid to pronounce words on our airwaves.

i am the worst! i mix up and mispronounce words all the time so i can't get mad at other people when they do it. my receptionist had to learn my unique brand of sign language because when i say the wrong word and she asks me what i mean i have to act out whatever i'm really trying to say. i always add an extra ed on words that end in ed--so big boned becomes big bone-ded. i admit that i do get a kick out of annoying people.

i thought hors d'oeurvres was whooors de oorvez until i was in high school--i actually thought there were 2 different words that meant the same thing.

i'm totally confused when other people mispronounce words though. my former receptionist said that she wanted a "beggle for breffist" and i could not figure out what she was talking about. i also had an opposing party (pro se) who wrote that my client only "sodjested" things that would make her angry. i had to say it out loud several times to figure that one out.

"off of", man. It's almost the same and it's weird, but it's off of...

"Shit, forgot one. I don't know if it's an exclusively Canadian thing, so someone will have to enlighten me if it's not.
"I seen her walking."
"I seen the car hit her."
"I seen her get axed to go out."
God damn it.
How about, "I seen her get axed to be the perpentrator in a white on black hoaxeses."
Posted by: Lola at April 23, 2008 11:28 PM"

Unfortunately that's common here in Australia too. It's like fingernails down a blackboard, to me.
Usually spoken by the same people that say 'haitch' instead of 'aitch' when pronouncing the letter 'H'.
Example: "My young'un joined the Four Haitch Club."
*shudder*

In 9th grade English we read "A Tale of Two Cities", and my GENIUS teacher insisted on pronouncing Jacques as "Jakes" for the entire 9 weeks we studied it. I am still aggravated about that one!

Also, I am in my late twenties, and just found out a year ago that it is "Shoulder-width apart", not "Shoulder with the part". I have no idea what I though "the part" was for all of these years, and it's kind of depressing to just now find out I'm an idiot.

When I was in high school and I worked at KFC we sold a Colonel's Chicken Sandwich. Most people who ordered it thought it was a Colonial Chicken Sandwich. Now I work in a pharmacy and it drives me crazy every time someone tells me they want to pick up their subscription instead of prescription.

The only one that is coming to me right now is the name Penelope. I had read it for years, but never heard anyone say it, so I thought it was pronounced to rhyme with antelope.

I can't remember when I finally heard someone say it and thought, "Oh wow. Pen-ell-oh-pee! Who knew?"

Another name. Sean. I thought that was pronounced "seen" for ages, and I never understood why someone would call their child that. Little did I know they actually meant something closer to "shawn."

Oh, and:
Premier.
Premiere.

There's a distinct difference in spelling, pronunciation and meaning. Not that many people know that...

rir260 - are you talking about Oneonta, NY? Is there a Titusville here, too? I immediately thought of Titusville, FL.

As a kid I was really into reading, and sped through dozens of books each month. This absolutely increased my vocabulary at an early age, but did not by any means that I could pronounce things better than the average kid. Case in point - Grade 1. We were doing some asinine study unit on clowns. The teacher asked us to think of words that might describe different kinds of clowns. So kids were putting up their hands and saying things like "silly" and "ugly" and "funny" and "weird". I had just read the word "awkward" in a book, and thought it was cool, but was for some reason convinced that it was pronounced "a-wark-end". I have no idea why. So I put up my hand, said "a-wark-end" and confused the hell out of the teacher. She asked me to repeat it about five times before she finally asked, "Like, a workin' clown? Are you talking about a working clown?" I was sure by this point she was an idiot so I just agreed and went on with my day. I don't remember when I learned the correct pronunciation but I really hope it was shortly thereafter. :P

I live in Kentucky. Last week my husband received an e-mail from a co-worker that read:

"There is a wreck on I-64, so if you go home that way, you mise well wait a while before you leave."

Mise well?! I can't believe she TYPED mise well, instead of might as well!

Beckyloo: I have a similar embarrassing "I never knew" moment.

As a child, my family (and I mean EVERYONE in my family) would use the expression "coon's age". As a kid I automatically thought it had something to do with raccoons, perhaps they aged like dogs (seven years to every human's one) so it made sense. A "coon's age" would be MUCH longer than a "human age".

I should have realized that any expression uttered by my racist grandfather, purveyor of such expressions as "nigger rigged", would not be so sweet and light.

It wasn't until just recently (sadly, I'm a little slow on the uptake) that I used "coon's age" in front of my husband. He gave me a look of shock and revulsion and gasped, "What did you just say?" I thought I was just being funny, using an old hillbilly yokel expression for a laugh. Not so much.

I had a literature teacher who kept pronouncing it "litta-chure". It raised my hackles every time.

My aunt used to say "see same" for sesame.

Until I got to high school, I read Albuquerque as al-buke-er-ick. Luckily I figured it out before ever saying it out loud to anyone.

OOOoooo just thought of another one. I used to work with this supremely obnoxious girl who thought she knew everything. When our boss told us in a meeting that the rate at which Marylanders buy cell phones is a microcosm of the entire country, little miss inbred-retard raises her hand as says, "Isn't it micro-chasm?"

And yes, Stella, she did pronounce it CH'asm.

At the age of 5, I was asked to read something off the board in class. The word was 'ewe'. I pronounced it, 'ewie'.

Also, I pronounce 'roof' as 'ruff', 'garage' as 'gah-ridge', and 'buried' as 'burr-eed', which according to people is weird.

"realtor

it is real-tor (as in real estate)

not real-la-tor"

I second that, and add: it's jew-el-ry not jew-ler-y

I was embarassed when ordering catering for a work event and I said, "And for oars de overies..." Um, yeah. I knew how hors d'ouerves (sp?) were pronounced, but not the spelling.

Me: Pom-uh-gran-nit?
Fiance: Pom-ah-grahnt.
Me: What's that now?
Fiance: Just look pretty, you'll be fine.

Am I wrong?

/read the name "Hermione" long before I ever heard it. NO ONE I KNEW got it right. To "hear my own" pronunciation was embarrasing.

I know I'm way late on this, but my mother the English Major has made a point in recent years of correcting anyone who says they are feeling "nauseous." Supposedly, the feeling is more properly termed "nauseated," and "nauseous" refers to anything that induces nausea. For what it's worth.

This is little-known, but it drives me nuts too. Whenever someone says, "I am feeling nauseous," I have to stifle the urge to say, "Well you don't look nauseous to me!" because I know that would be ornery, especially if someone is in fact feeling nauseated. But it irks me nonetheless.

Also, who invented the word "signage"? Because it's stupid. All you need to say is "signs."

That is all.

My dad still refers to "deaf" as "death." My ex husband is deaf, but I may have wished the other on him at times!

"Usually spoken by the same people that say 'haitch' instead of 'aitch' when pronouncing the letter 'H'.
Example: "My young'un joined the Four Haitch Club."

Loob: My Nigerian husband and all Nigerian's I've met say "H" as "haitch". I thought it was something unique to their country.

I didn't know "for all intensive purposes" was incorrect until now -- ha! I learned that "nu-cu-ler" was incorrect when I was 25. At age 30, I learned that liquor Blue Curacao sounds like "cure a sow", not a rhyme with "Morocco".

My best pal says "real-a-tor" instead of realtor, "wisk" instead of wicks (as in "this fabric wicks away moisture"). She also uses "alls" and "anyways".

One former coworker said "supposably", and another coworker said "Pacific" instead of "specific", and yet another said "am-buh-lance" instead of "ambulance" and "for Pete Sakes" instead of "for Pete's sake".

I am very ashamed to admit this, but as a kid it took me a while to realize that 'fathead' in written form meant fat-head, and not fath-ead if you see what I mean.

Yes I'm pathetic.

"awry" was pronounced: a-rye. I'd always pronounced it to rhyme with "bawdry."

..... -_-

I had to come back to mention "canary", as in the bird. I cannot say that word correctly, it comes out as "cannery" every time. The whole "Cat that ate the canary" thing never made sense to me as a kid; I kept trying to imagine a cat eating an entire fish-packing plant.

Just got a brand new one tonight, watching "Forgetting Sarah Marshall." A woman two rows in front of us was watching it with her husband, and at one point during an awkward moment with Sarah, Peter, and her new boyfriend this woman muttered, "How 'ca-loss!'" I believe she meant "callous," and I'm pretty sure her husband wasn't chuckling at the movie.

I'm Australian with a vaguely English accent thanks to some thoroughly well-spoken parents, so I've never been able to pronounce a word wrong without some kind of wrath ensuing. The thing that irritates me the most isn't even mispronunciation, it's that American accent where the sounds 'ah' (like 'star) 'aw' (like 'store') are pronounced exactly the same. They're two completely different sounds! I just about explode every time I see someone refer to the heroine in Tomb Raider as Laura Croft.



I think the syllable deficit in the word 'Aluminum' (we non-Yanks spell and pronounce it 'Aluminium') is made up for in the word 'Miniature' (which is 'Min-a-ture' to us).

And one more thing: there's never been any libary/library contention in Australia. We all pronounce it 'lye-bree'.

Oh, and I once heard somebody pronouncing the word Chameleon as "Chammalion".

Late in the game but I used to say "self depreciating" like I was some kind of fixed asset instead of "self deprecating"

Holamiis - I hope for your sake you were joking about that one. I believe there is an instructional section on the site telling you how to pronounce the blessed word. Just try to rhyme it with a very specific lady-part.

here in texASS
nook U lur is quite common....

one of my kids' teachers, an english teacher btw...
pronounces

vehicle = VEE-HIK-ull

escape = IX-skape

police = PO-leece

minpronunciation, or misuse.. both make me want to pull my hair and eyes out....

the misuse of the words, bit & beat
'he got beat up.'
IT'S BEATEN.
he got bit by that rabid dawwwg.
IT'S BITTEN.

i once heard a MSM newshead in NC refer to debris de-bree) from a tornado.. as "strow'd" instead of strewn. eyeroll.

the the phrase "where's it AT?" makes me scream!

Words:

dictionerr, instead of dictionary

Balmer, instead of Baltimore

zink, instead of sink

And when people say "are-ah" for the letter 'R' my ears bleed.

Phrases:

might could, instead of might be able to

up-air, instead of up there

I can't help it but I pronounce sandwich as "sangwich" unless I try really hard not to. Also brewery turns into "broo-ry" in my mouth.

And I work with lawyers and mispronounced "litigious" until I heard someone else say it.

Now wait, how do you pronounce banal if not "bay-nal" I'm confused...

I was really confused in early school years when we learned to count. For some reason, I wanted to fight people that told me there's no such number as eleventeen. It just sounds so right!! ...eight, nine, ten, eleventeen...
I just couldn't cut it off at eleven. Not even in the eleventeenth hour!!

"Then" refers to time, "than" refers to a comparison.

Also, I thought "anxiety" was pronounced ANK-shitty. You know, like anxious.

I used to pronounce the name Marjorie as May-Jury until I had a class w/ a girl w/ that name.

It always bothers me when people mispronounce designer names. For instance, Givenchy is Ji-van-chi not Gah-ven-chi. Mui Mui is actually pronounced like moo moo and not moowee moowee.

so I arrived way late to the party, but here goes:

For the longest time in high school I was on a kick of saying "vehemently." I thought this word was pronounced "vuh-HE-mently." I was corrected (vee-um-ently) by my friend's older, smarter, way-cooler sister. Whoops.

I also pronounced "biopic" to rhyme with "myopic."

I went to college just outside of Boston, and being from New Hampshire, had mostly no idea about all the names of cities that are not spelled the way they are pronounced. I remember my Mass-born roommate giving me a lesson on town names that I had butchered such as Quincy--(Kwinzy) and Billerica--(Bill'rica).

Lastly, my former boss, an Irishman, pronounced the letter "H" as "hayche." Not in words, but just as naming letters, ie: e, eff, gee, hayche, eye, etc. He also called khaki pants "fawn-colored trousers," and was an over-user of the word "irregardlessly." I hated him.

oh, and Fernando, Bass Ale is like the fish.

Late to the game, but I have to post these!

Imagine my extreme humilitation when as a senior English major, I was informed that during my department-wide thesis presentation, I had pronounced Mephistopheles as "Me-fist-o-phay-lees." My thesis advisor also informed me that Goethe is not pronounced like Go with a -th on the end. The good professor was not very kind about the errors I'd made, and did a bang-up job of making me feel scummy.

However much I hated how I felt after the experience, it taught me not to be pedantic and snobbish when others made pronunciation mistakes. That was a lesson I needed to take with me as I began a career in teaching!

Impugn is pronounced "impyoon" in case anyone's still wondering. My peeves:

menstruation as "menstration"
foliage as "folage"
"one at the time" rather than "one at A time"

And I don't care WHAT dustin says, it's pajeeba.

oh sweet jesus. there are so many, but i'll mostly make fun of my father because he has two ma's and a phd and doesn't think i know more than he does. he will forever and to this day until the end of time and throughout the anals of history and the future call the front hall of any house, ie the foyer, the 'foy-err'. i mean i know it's pretentious to even have a foyer, but when being pretentious, go all out and pronounce it 'foy-ay', the way it's *supposed* to be done. goddammit dad.

No, it's "mentalstration". You know that.

But it's always gonna be "pa-HEE-ba" in my head. I mean, it's not crazy to see that, is it?

I don't like a lot of abbreviated words either, as Janis was discussing. It's not technically mispronouncing, but if one starts talking about espresso drinks with "skinny" (or "skeenny" for southern women) and "whip" it's all I can do to not have an epileptic fit. I don't get the "sangwich" thing, but I don't know anyone who says that either, so I'll have to take everyone's word on it.

I have to physically pause and think very carefully for a moment before I say "orchid". If I don't pause(and even sometimes when I do), I say orchid with the "ch" sound instead of a hard "c" sound.

When I was around eight, when I read something about Episcopalians in some sort of history book. I very seriously asked my mother what "Epic Cop Aliens" were.

I had a friend in the office who would say, "cease and assist," instead of, "cease and desist." I guess she used it in the context of, "quit being counterproductive and help those who are doing it correctly."

Also, when people say, "suposubly" (suh-POZE-uh-blee) instead of "supposedly". That drives me nuts.

Oh, man.

In college, a partner in a group project wrote "the mink shall inherit the Earth" in our group paper, instead of the Biblical reference "the meek shall inherit the Earth."

A few more if anyone is still reading.

I had a boss you used to refer to the 'fiscal year' as the 'physical year'. I was never sure if she just had trouble pronouncing fiscal or if she truly believed the word was physical.

My mother says mustache as mushtache.

For years I mispronounced the word 'turquoise' as tur-quaze. In my defense, I'm in Canada, and I had learned the word from my crayons and must have been reading the French side or something.

I also refused to believe that Enid was a real name for the longest time.

I'm Nigerian by birth, though I've spent my entire life in England. I end every family holiday with shards of my own teeth in my mouth, and a mangled tongue as a result of the gems my older family members give me. Most of these are highly English pet peeves, so the Yanks may skip this post..:)

Here are a few-

'Lichester' for Leicester
War-wick for Warwick

Pronouncing any of the 'shires' as shy-er as opposed to 'sher' - as in Lestersher NOT Lichestershyer. [Count. To. Ten.]

Pronouncing the L in salmon and almond, or the T in often, castle and listen.

'Baff' for 'Bathe' as in, 'I'm off to have a baff' or 'Have you baffed yet?' That one causes real pain.
' Muhda and Fada' for Mother and Father
'Share' for Chair

And my personal favorites come from my 6 year old cousin-

When complaining about traveling for miles in a small car-
'I was in a squeezeness for the whole journey'
In response to a query as to the job title of Tony Blair
' He is the Prime President of the United Kingdom of America'.

Had a very good columnist at the newspaper I work for insist on writing "Make no doubt," merging "Make no mistake" and "No doubt." I harangued him time and again, changed it every time, but he never wrote it correctly. Drove me nuts.

And I'm with others on possessives and its vs. it's. Makes me want to pull off the road and take a big Sharpie to some signs.

I overheard my cousin say, "survival of the fetus" and "skilleto" instead of stilleto.

jamiepants: how do you pronounce PAJIBA, by the way? (LOL!!!) mind telling me? :)thanks!

its okay guys... in 5th grade I was reading "Where The Red Fern Grows" with the rest of my class as we all took turns reading a few sentences outloud. My turn came and I came across the word "tidy" which I read as "titty", much to the hilarity of my peers and the anger of my teacher who thought I did it on purpose. A call to my parents and disaster ensued.... lol

I hate how Americans use "period" instead of "full-stop". A period is something a woman has each month. A full-stop goes at the end of a sentence.
i.e. "This conversation is over. Full-stop." Using "period" is just gross!

Culinary is "Cue-lih-nary", NOT "Cull-ih-nary"