Entertainment For Lively Minds
most mispronounced word
Posted by Junior Wells on 12 May 2009 - 11:37am.
Tonight I watched a quite interesting documentary on the potential for Armageddon arising from the USSR /Reagan era tensions.
Throughout the programme a well spoken English sounding woman referred in her voice-over not to "nuclear" as in newclear but "newcewlar" or sometimes "newcelar". This was not an occasioanl slip. The mispronunciations were regular and consistent.
I was amazed that no-one throughout the production hadn't said "hang on -that's not right".
Surely nuclear is the most mispronounced word of modern times
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Maybe, but...
How about "deteriate" for "deteriorate"?
I would suggest some controversy about that.
This is, however, quite fun:
http://www.yourdictionary.com/library/mispron.html
I have just been
searching those words in an English online dictionary to check whether I really mangle as many words as that site suggests (Suddenly Feeling Defensive Edit: which is not to suggest I mangle more than a few of the words on there, but that I mangle more than I would have imagined).
I do. How depressing.
surprised
the online dictionary didn't list
chimeney
Aloominum
"Aloominum" tastes like fear according to R.E.M
Dubya was always banging on about "nookulurr" threats. While taking a look in the "meer". At one point I though he'd declared war on Tourism.
And where we use a short "i" sound - the Overtheponders use a long one - so hence "sem-eye" final and "vite"-amins. Oh and route pronounced to rhyme with shout, rather than shoot. Hip-hop and R&B tracks "axing" people a question.
Not sure I get annnoyed really - it's no more annoying than Estuarine twang or Sith Efrikun or Brummoy - "let's go for a curroy"
All part of life's rich Pageant. Back To R.E.M
Curroy
Black country, sheev, worlds apart.
Noddy Holder
rushes into a tailor's and says
"Oi need a whole Seventies stoyle artfitt - we're puttin Slide bak together!"
"That's wonderful news - kipper tie?"
"Yes ploize - milk, two sugars"
(sorry)
ha ha
love a brummy accent gag
Aluminum
That'll be because the Americans spell 'aluminium' as 'aluminum', Sheev, so their pronunciation is entirely correct from their stand-point...
'Pry Minister' for Prime Minister must be even more prolific than 'newcular', surely?
Never mind pronunciation,
why can't they spell it correctly?
Do they call a flat a conduminum?
I heard somewhere
that 'Aloominnum' was the original pronunciation but then the top scientists of the day realised that it didn't really 'go' with all the other new substances that were being discovered (Lithium, Sodium, etc. etc.) - so they changed it. In the meantime, our American cousins had revolted and weren't listening any more, hence they stayed with the old/wrong spelling
...
well, I thought it was interesting
Bill Bryson thinks it's interesting too
According to his footnote on the aluminum/aluminium confusion in 'A Short History of Nearly Everything', it arose because Humphrey Davy (who discovered it) couldn't decide what to call it - first he called it 'alumium', then four years later renamed it 'aluminum'. The Yanks very obediently adopted the new name but then the Brits objected because it didn't fit in with the sodium/calcium/strontium pattern. For some reason (Mr Bryson doesn't explain) they didn't simply revert to Davy's original monicker but added another syllable instead.
...
I could not begin to explain why this is interesting (but it is).
(BTW, while we're on US/Brit pronunciation disputes, I have a totally knee-jerk dislike of the way they pronounce 'Anthony' as 'An-thunny'. Utterly irrational, because technically they're right. And yet so wrong. It always slightly spoils the Kay/Anthony showdowns in Godfather II for me: -
Kay: Come and give your mother a kiss, An-thunny.
Me (thinks): ANTONY! ANTONY! CALL HIM BY HIS PROPER NAME!!!!
Two countries divided by a common language, as Shaw (I believe) once said.)
"Lifes Rich Pageant" - whither the apostrophe?
Ah, but REM omit the apostrophe from the title of "Lifes Rich pageant". What scallywags, eh?
Oh, and Tom Waits omitted the apostrophe from "Franks Wild Years", too. Goodness knows why.
[that's enough missing apostrophe-spotting- Ed.]
Phew,
better not get started on 'Odessey and Oracle' eh?
i see a difference here
aluminium, kilometre, controversy etc are i ndeed mispronounced but at least they get the phonetics right
With deteriate and "newcewlar" et al , the sin is that they get the whole friggin thing wrong
How about
Asterix (for asterisk) or pacific (meaning specific)?
And the letter 'h' pronounced as 'haitch'?
Asterix instead of asterisk
Is particularly Gauling.
Especially...
...as the font is Roman.
Americans and herbs
They really do say Erb. Except in Alpert.
Savages!
And orr -IG-unno and Bay-zil
I believe they call what we know as Coriander something pronounced cell-ANT-ro.
All terrible isn't it?
Surely that's
oREGano?
I went all phernetik like, innit?
(similarly Cilantro)
considering they are in majority
don't they say it proper and it's us "brits" who are wrong?
None of which is abad as southerners (from catford etc) and their long vowels.
I do get a bit wound up by aRsk ryhmes with larks instead ask ryhmes with mask .
A southerner writes...
Er, 'ask' does rhyme with 'mask'; it just doesn't rhyme with your 'mask'.
Duplicate - please feel free to delete
..
I knew that would cause problems
it's not a new problem Wordsworth had the same ryhming matter with water. You cockerneys know how to torture a perfectly lovely language though! :)
Not a cockney
but 'water' definitely doesn't rhyme with 'matter' any more than our pronounciation of 'dance' rhymes with 'romance'...
It does...
...if you're from Cumbria, as dear old Will Wordsworth (pronounced Wuds-wuth) was.
Indeed it does
and also still in some parts of Yorkshire, especially the Dales. It used to be even more widespread in the North than it is now.
Oh I do loathe aspirations
Haitch does get my 'ackles up like
But what gets my goat more are those who deem it necessary to punctuate their conversation with me by using my name every 5 seconds in said dialogue. I know my name, you name my name. Why do you keep saying it?
"using my name every 5 seconds in said dialogue"
Blimey, is your name 'The'?
"the thing is Vulp, yeah, you know that thing,Vulp, we talked
about the other day, Vulp. Well, Vulp, we still ain't figured it out - know what I mean Vulp yeah?"
And that's how he talks - our IT support manager. Lovely bloke, knows his stuff - but a big one for name use.
The IT Infrastructure guy here,
no more than 5 metres away as I type, uses the word "Yeah?" with a rising cadence, at the end of every phrase. It's as if his self esteem is so low that he needs confirmation that you are still listening after every four of five phonemes.
So I can empathise, Sheev, yeah? I know exactly, yeah? what you mean Sheev, yeah? There's no doubt, yeah? Sheev, that I am, yeah? right there, Sheev, yeah? when it comes to sympathising too, yeah?
Pass the ammunition.
Aaargh
One of my colleagues? Turns every spoken sub-clause? Into a question? By employing rising cadence? Far too often?
God, it's annoying.
Upspeak
I noticed this first in about 1998, but it seems to be on the wane now. Or am I being optimistic?
waxing I'd say - prevalently so - I fear. You feel me bro?
-
Hey Sheev? If you hit the spacebar? No need for the hyphen?
like thanks yeah? 2 nite at Space Bar? Hear cool? LOL!?
My particular unfavourites
forMIDable
REsearch
Cleaner to customer: "Now, would you like me to just give the whole house a general clean, or is there somewhere pacific that you'd like me to focus on?"
class war hackles arising!
- did he tell her to begin by sweeping up all those dropped haitches?
"now look here old chap -
about this application to join The Household Cavalry.."
"Yeah, wha'baht it?"
"I'm afraid we need you to speak a little differently"
"Eh? Wot you on abaht?"
"Well, can you say 'air'?"
"Air"
"Can you say 'hell'?'
"Hell"
"Good, now can you say those words again quickly - repeating the first at the end?"
"Airhellair"
"By jove, I think he's got it!"
Satday
as in the day after Friday. I know we're regularly told to stop umming and erring but it's a 3-syllable word with a perfectly respectable "err" in the middle.
Here on Merseyside
Livpool fans enjoy nothing more than "going the match" on Satday (pronounced 'Sat-dee').
To Err
is human, to Um - Divine
(gets coat, Leaves)
What about...
febRuary and modERn
it is not
FebUary nor ModREn.
i joined a libry in febury
my bux must be overjew bi now.
Mansht
It's a big city up North, apparently.
Not a mispronunciation, I know, and a bit Lynne Truss
but it seems depressingly popular (probably a trend started by Murray Walker) to say 'remorseless' ("and Senna is moving remorselessly through the field...") when the speaker surely means 'relentless'.
No, Senna is indeed remorseless,
being most definitely dead.
Cool Whip?
Glottal stops
Must stop, in my opinion.
Can't bear hearing today's little scamps talking about something or other and pronouncing the word 'something' as 'suh-hink'.
Done with a lazy unmoving slack jaw. Too stressed to actually move their gobholes and form syllables, bless them.
Hyperbole
I don't even read it right let alone pronounce it right. Surely there's an 'e' missing off the end?
Natasha Bedingfield…
… famously experienced similar confusion re. this in one of her songs (These Words Are Mine, I think) and, cherishably, went for the 'hyper-bowl' option.
One of the most seldom correctly pronounced words is lamentable. The stress should be on the first syllable.
Says who?
I'm intrigued to know if there is any logic to this assertion.
The dictionary.
It says.
la-MEN-ta-ble
I don't care about no dictionary, anybody who says it should be pronounced different can shove it up their ah-SAY.
Safe
in the knowledge that they're right.
Charming
And does the same apply to spellings you don't 'agree with', too?
Sorry
Thought we were on the same page with the pronunciation of lamentable. I'm well aware that the irony of language is that we cling to what's 'right' when the whole point is it's meant to change with the culture that speaks it.
I am a huge pedant. You're speaking to someone who only ever uses the word ultimate to mean final.
Actually…
… I was responding to the previous person. But it's an interesting point - at what point does the 'misuse'/'misspelling'/'mispronunciation' of a word win out against the 'correct' version? When, for example, did it become OK for 'impact' to be used as a verb instead of 'impinge'? As a sub-editor these things are a daily concern for me!
For the record, I don't care how people pronounce lamentable. My point was purely about the 'correct' pronunciation as opposed to the one most people use…
When we give up
Doesn't the 'incorrect' version win when we stop bothering to correct it, David?
I've more-or-less given up with the 'less/fewer' distinction now as people just think I'm being pedantic when I raise it. I gave up on 'quote/quotation', 'militate/mitigate' and several others years ago.
There are however, several that I won't let go of just yet:
1. are/our - i.e. "Can Joe come round are house to play?" (Granted, this may only be an issue for those of us in the North West of England.)
2. learn/teach - i.e. "Can you learn me how to take a throw-in?"
3. lend/borrow - i.e. "Can I lend your book?"
Having said all of that, I thoroughly enjoyed Stephen Fry's recent, ahem, Podgram, on why we shouldn't be so precious about language...
Less/fewer
That's a whole can o' worms… But what REALLY annoys me with this one is when people use 'fewer' when they should use 'less', thinking they're being super-correct. I heard a Radio 4 news report that said somebody or other had been archbishop (or whatever) for 'fewer than three years'…
Same goes for those who delight in pointing out split infinitives as 'wrong', when this supposed rule a) has little historical justification (basically, it doesn't happen in Latin) and b) actually doesn't make sense with some constructions.
So yeah, I agree we shouldn't be too precious about language - meanings and usage inevitably shift. But it can only be a bad thing when nice subtleties of meaning connected with specific word use become smoothed over.
Nice
Agreed on all counts. (Though it's interesting that you use 'nice' in its modern sense of 'agreeable', 'delightful' rather than the more historical 'fastidious', 'dainty'...!)
thrice nice
In fact… I was using nice in the equally historical - and now seldom used - sense of 'suggestive of a slight difference' or 'requiring careful consideration'!
Anyway
I agree with you about lamentable, David.
That word
was going to be my choice too. I went years pronouncing it the wrong way, until I heard someone on the BBC correct me.
Isn't that like an even bigger version of Superbowl?
-
Superbol-ee
Except in Wick
where it is all stops and little else: you must learn to speak without all these glottal stops would come out as "oo uh earrn oo pee i'ow a' ees or'al ops, aye"
And people don't say nuclear power much now
Instead, anyone discussing energy options on TV or the radio seems to refer to "nuclear power" as "nuclear" - eg "James Lovelock thinks that nuclear is the best option for reducing global warming."
Dro-ring...
...when it should be 'drawing'.
And- if you're Robert Peston- 'markitts' when it should be 'markets'.
Throwing the 'r' away
I assumed that the quaint habit of adding an extra 'r' in draw-ring (instead of drawing) was to make up for missing it out in waw-tah (instead of water).
Throw The 'R' Away
O and that awful weather woman
Inglind, Scotlind.
Burn her now!
Why doesJohn Major say
"wunt" instead of want. An "tumurrow" instead of tomorrow.
And why did Michael Howard talk about "peepull in jayull" instead of people in jail?
Can't account for John Major
but Michael Howard has a low-level but detectable Llanelli accent, in line with his origins.
Emphasise and lengthen second-to-last-syllable of multi-syllable words - as in
"Peepull from Llaneerlli may talk very Sl-o-o-o-wly."
Because John Major
is a twunt.
Gordon Ramsay says 'restrunt'
Bob Harris says 'recurds'
I find them both really annoying.
Well, he would, wouldn't he?
What a caunt.
As in John Gaunt?
Oh yes
Those two get to me every time, especially Bob Harris as you know he does it (or did it and it stuck) to be cool...
Nah
He just always wanted to be Fluff Freeman. Didn't we all?
er...
He just always wanted to
beFluff Freeman. Didn't we all?/coat
Teeth-clenching
'Aks' instead of the perfectly easy to pronounce 'ask'. Very common amongst lovers of 'the rap' and 'the hip-hop', apparently.
Not forgetting..
the use of "witchoo" in place of "with you".
ooo ooo oooo-ooo oooeoooo, ooo oo ooo-oo oeooeooo, oo oo ooo
Were gonna come around at twelve
With some Puerto Rican girls that are just daaaaaaahnn to meetchu
Spoony
spends his 606 show struggling not to say "ark-sing" especially when someone calls in who says it that way.
The schwa...
...is the unstressed vowel sound in any language. I don't think it's incorrect to use it. It reminds me of my prep school headmaster, who insisted that we all sang "O tidings of comFORT and joy" every Christmas; rather than the slightly lazy but perfectly acceptable and correct use of a schwa to make the word come out as 'comfert'.
While we're ridiculing various regional accents,
can anyone explain which planet Loyd Grossman is from?
Isn't he Eamonn Forde's neighbour?
Bawston
(Or Boston, Mass) - he merely suffers from 'Irritable Vowel Syndrome'
But I went to Boston a few years ago
and I didn't meet a single person who spoke like him.
Most mispronounced name...
Bill Szymczyk
Bill...
...Rhymes with "Pill" and "Sill"
Polish guy is having an eye-test
Optician: Can you read the bottom line?
Polish Guy: Read it? I know him!
The old ones are the old ones...
If we're dissecting the language..
then dissect and words derived from it have to be among the most frequently mispronounced.
It's "dis-sect"; to cut apart. The first syllable rhymes with "miss" not "my".
If you want to cut something into two pieces then you can bisect it. There's no such word as "disect".
a disexual then
is someone who cuts your sexuality apart with the sharp edge of their wit?
Thea - saurus
Instead of "thesaurus" - anyone?
Not that I'm bashing my new American neighbours
but the things that grate most are
"Meer" for "mirror" and "wadder" for "water". In New York, I had terrible problems getting a sandwich until I aksed, sorry asked for "Toona".
Behind the meer
My brother always thought the song went:
Louise, she's all right, she's just near
She's delicate, she seems like Vermeer
Now I'm no Latin expert
but it's my understanding that EVERYBODY mispronounces 'Caesar'. Instead of 'seize-er', it should be 'Kaisar'.
Caesar Chiefs?
Gets coat...
Or Caesar Caesars
Or Kaiser Kaisers
Or Chief Chiefs.
All semantically the same, really.
I'd never really thought that much about the name before.
Kaizer Chiefs
Are a South African football team. The founder, Kaizer Motaung, who had played for the Atlanta Chiefs in the US, named them after himself and his US club. Band named after them because of one Lucas Radebe who joined Leeds from the Kaizer Chiefs. Not sure why they couldn't spell though.......
It's "certificate".
Not "stiffy kit". Mind you, imagine the hilarious misunderstandings that could ensue if we were all living in an LWT sitcom circa 1983.
Oh, and it's not "eck cetera". It's "et cetera".
And it's "pronunciation", not "pronounce-iation".
I worked on a play
some time ago where every night the leading lady scolded another character for not "announciating proply".
Certificate
My preferred pronunciation is Bob Marley's "surfer ticket", as in Rebel Music (3 O'Clock Roadblock).
I don't use it (much). I just like it.
Yes!!
You noticed it too, my favourite bit
Natty Dread
was one of the first LPs I bought. "Birth surfer-ticket" has been delighting me since the mid-70s.
Spanish Sausage
This may seem trivial, but it winds me up summat rotten, making me want throw my sausage at the tv.
"Chorizo" is pronounced incorrectly by most tv chefs as cho-reet-so, when it could be cho-ree-tho (Castilian pronunciation) or cho-ree-so (Southern Spain and Latin America).
similarly should Bruschetta ...
...be pronounced with a hard 'c' and not softun' ala Brus - ketta?
yes - as in
I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice pint of David Cronenbourg - sorry Kianti (Reeves)
And, Steve Wright and Jeremy Vine, for the love of God...
Beijing is pronounced "bay-jing", not "bay-zhing" or "bay-shing". Several memos were issued to this effect last year. Could you spare 30 seconds from your busy schedules to read them?
not sure that bothers me
- whatever we say it's probably nothing like the local dialect. A chum who's at the FO say that Peking was probably closer in the first place.
We don't get around saying "Paree" or "Meh - hee -koh" - except for irony - unless we wish to be considered an utter bell-end by our friends and loved ones.
Agreed, Sheevemaster, but
I'm not arguing that rigidly correct local pronunciation is used for foreign place names.
The fact is, all the Beeb's worker ants were told by the Pronunciation Unit - which, presumably researches these things - that the Anglicised rendering most readily accepted by Mandarin speakers was "Bay-jing". Nothing else.
Appreciate
Often mispronounced and probably the one that winds me up most.
my compatriots
cant even get the name of our country right
it is not austraya
that means
it's New Zealand then?
Pronunciation
It's particularly annoying when people having a go about pronunciation say pronounciation. I noticed that someone above has even made the mistake in print.
seeing my petard beside me
when I posted originally I referred to the dictionary and ,ahem, amended my text !
Zed
Not zee. This isn't a map of Holland.
A colleague of mine yesterday
told me she had been on holiday to Egypt and brought back a "momentum".
Laugh? I nearly wept - she's two pay grades above me...
Did she just mean
she was going to work harder?!
Physics Joke
Was it an impulse buy?
Leave off the Yanks!
It is the British that have buggered up the language by inventing stupid new spellings of perfectly good words.
And another thing...why do people trot out the rule "I before E except after C" when I can immediately think of two words where this plainly does not apply? A rubbish rule.
The rest of the rule
I was taught that the full rule is 'I before E except after C when the sound is 'eee''. So it applies to ceiling, for example, but not reindeer.
Still not convinced
Prescient, seize...
That's the thing about rules, Austin:
there are always exceptions.
Apart from the one I'm currently stating, of course....
"The exception that proves the rule"
Never understood that one either, when offered in a serious tone. Effectively, isn't it a clever-clogs way of saying "I don't know".
"The exception that proves the rule"
doesn't mean "there's an exception, so it must be right", but rather "the exception that *tests* the rule". (ie "there's an exception, so can it really be a rule?") (Alternative meaning of "prove" as in "the proof of the pudding...")
"Exception that proves...." is one of the misuses I hear most (writes a pedant).
Oh I see ...
Thanks. I have spent nearly 43 ignorant thicko years not knowing that.
"The exception that proves the rule"
If "The exception that proves the rule" meant "there's an exception, so can it really be a rule?" why would you need such a formal expression? You could just say, That rule doesn't work. The phrase means instead that a set of exceptions may be taken to imply an unstated rule. So "No parking on Wednesdays and Thursdays" means you can park there the rest of the time, without saying as much.
Dubious seque to current news story
So, is that where all our much-beloved MPS went wrong?
They read that the rules said they couldn't claim for cocaine and prostitutes and then took it as read that they could claim for the cost of court summonses, wisteria trimming, mortgage payments they hadn't actually made and so on?
leszczuk,
my guess is you've looked at the Wiki entry, but not at enough of it :-).
Try the second of Fowler's usages, the scientific sense, which was the meaning I was taught (a very long time ago). It doesn't mean "the rule doesn't work", but rather "there seems to be an exception, we'd better make sure it's a rule."
However I'd never thought of the first usage, so I've learned something new today. (That seems to be a less controversial saying....)
You can't actually do anything with the 'scientific sense'
I hadn't seen the Wiki page, actually, but I have now.
"Scientific sense: A case may appear at first sight to be an exception to the rule. However, when we examine things more closely, we see that the rule doesn't apply to this case, so the rule is shown to be valid after all."
No one would construct a phrase that means this. Compare "The typing proves the password: If your computer password doesn't seem to work, it's always worth checking that you haven't mistyped it."
As always, World Wide Words has a plausible entry: www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-exc1.htm
"No one would construct a phrase that means this" §
The Wiki entry is based on HW Fowler's Modern English Usage, certainly still recommended as a style guide in British academia in the late 80s. (Although admittedly it was somewhat less than modern by then, being some sixty years old by that time.)
Your "Scientific sense" quotation stops short of Fowler's example - that of a critic who always gives bad reviews. When he writes a good review of a work by some new name, this tests our rule, and would seem to invalidate it...until we discover that the work reviewed is his own, written under a pseudonym. So the exception (the good review) doesn't count. Makes sense to me....
Fowler's book does what it says on the tin - it analyses and assesses examples of English as used by English speakers. And I can't see what's wrong with a phrase that means/can mean "if there's an apparent exception to a rule, this tests whether the rule is valid".
I'm not quite sure what you're getting at with "the typing proves the password...." An exception, such as deliberately mistyping a password, would test the rule that you need to enter a valid password to log in, sure. If you logged in with the mistyped one, you'd have demonstrated that the rule was invalid.
I'll agree that "proves=tests" is an archaic definition, but proverbial sayings are often couched in archaic language.
§ NB No-one *has* constructed a phrase that means what the "Scientific sense..." quotation says. They *have* constructed one that means "an apparent exception to a rule tests the rule", when they use the "exception that proves the rule" phrase in that sense. As you've pointed out and Fowler , Wiki and other sources confirm, this sense isn't the only valid one.
And the Wiki page points out (and you've admirably confirmed!) that my interpretation "is not universally accepted"; but Fowler dismisses only one of the five usages he cites - the one that implies that "exceptions can always be neglected" and "a truth is all the truer if it is sometimes false".
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *(Imagine a whole row of more widely spread asterisks right across the page here, if you would.)
Crikey, I need to go and have a lie down now. Thanks for reminding me why I chose not to do Philosophy in Prelims :-)
Fowler Excepted
Whatever the phrase should actually mean, I find it most often used in conversation to mean 'The point you've just made invalidates my argument, but I'm going to continue banging on as if it doesn't'.
Shall we do Fowler and to boldly split infinitives now, or has that been covered elsewhere?
"...banging on as if it doesn't."
You've hit the nail on the head, Vernier.
To merrily spout a stock phrase :-)
Amberlance
or ambliance.
When we all know it's Am-bew-lance.
If you continue to get it wrong you're going home in one.
Ooooh I could crush a grape...
When I hear.
Asstetikz for aesTHetics.
Aaaargh! R4 particularly guilty.
It's not pronunciation, it's grammar,
but the thing that most annoys me is the inability of people for whom speaking is a trade (I'm talking television and radio presenters here, in the main) to know the difference between "more quickly" and "quicker", and how to employ them.
But is there a difference, Vulpes?
Granted, 'quicker' is a adjective and 'more quickly' an adverbial phrase, but according to my trusty, desk copy of Collins Pocket Dictionary of Engish Usage:
"You can use the adjectives 'quick' and 'quicker' in place of the adverbs 'quickly' and 'more quickly' when you want to be emphatic or urgent: Quick: get it right; He slithered out of the tree quicker than he had expected."
Oh, I know the current guidance is slack.
However, that's not how I was taught to use them. "More quickly" is a comparative adverbial phrase, while "quicker" is a simple comparative adjective; "a slow rocket is quicker than a scooter, but a quick rocket is even faster".
With a verb, the sense is given by "If I plan things in advance, I can carry out the procedure more quickly". If I said I could "carry out the procedure quicker.", to my ears it sounds ugly and lazy.
Perhaps it's not really grammar, it's just usage (or abusage).
or "less" and "fewer"
-
Yes
the fewer said about that one the better ;)
By
who(m)?
Specifically not pecifically
How hard is that one? Too hard for some I fear.
Lingeree
Not lingeray, for goodness sake, you idiots. Spelt Lingerie.
That's just
pants
someone say Link Wray?
let's get ready to rumble...
While we're having a linguistic leprosy session,
can I say how inflamed I get contemplating the difference between the words 'flammable' and 'inflammable'?
You'd have thought someone from Health & Safety would have intervened by now.
It both cleaves my heart
and cleaves it back together to hear of your grief
Lackadaiscal
as Laxadaisical
and criteria used in a singular case instead of criterion
For a laugh, why not ask (or arsk) a Liverpudlian to pronounce cacophony !
Just spotted
On the website of Computer Active, which I guess is a magazine of sorts
"You will be automatically redirected to the page requested momentarily."
That's no good! I'm going to need a couple of minutes at least!
Just spotted #2
On the 'Which team do you support' thread elsewhere on the blog: "shoe-in" instead of "shoo-in".
People who get that wrong deserve a good shoeing.
Along with…
… people who 'tow' the line
a master class on the subject
You pulling my kine?
Or just cow towing.....
Ingerland ! Ingerland ! Ingerland!
who are you?
Isn't that the country immediately south of...
... Sco'lan'
Scalextric
often pronounced as Scalectrix. And for that matter, skeleton - as skellington.
Misused sayings
'For all intensive purposes' anyone?
Not to mention…
“I did it off my own back”
Aah - Mrs Malaprop
comes to visit !
"It's a mute point"
always annoys me.
And on a grammatical level: is it just me who grinds my teeth every time someone refers to a "terror suspect" or a "terror attack"? TERRORISM! TERRORIST!
And relax.
No
It's not.
Counter Terrorism
We are not fucking American here.
It's ANTI-TERRORISM. Or at least it was before 2001 when it got all fashionable
My mum gets livid
whenever she hears Kathleen Ferrier's surname pronounced so it rhymes with 'Perrier' instead of 'merrier'.
I love the English language....
Round these parts (Aberdeen) a lot of folk
say Hostel when it is clearly Hospital. Don't get me started on doric or we will be here all night.
So would
hospitality be hostility? Or only in relation to Jimmy Calderwood?
But
isn't that just a verbal contraction of the word rather than a semantic error, ie hos(pi)tal ... leaving out the bit in brackets?
also see:
Sco(t)lan(d)
Generally repeated by ...
.. people born in the southern parts of the country in an ironic way ..
Ooop North or perhaps Eh Ooop or even more annoying - Fookin.
I know not one person who says Fookin.
North/South divide
What the fey, flat-beer-drinking Southerners fail to realise is that for those of us residing in the superior northern counties, a word spelt as 'fooking' doesn't ryhme with the 'oo' in 'book', as they intend.
Instead, it reads as if it rhymes with the 'oo' in 'loo'. Try, for example, any Gallagher interview with that sound in mind and farce descends rapidly.
To turn the tables: were I try to phoneticise a southern accent to reflect my version of their pronunication, I would make 'I was running up the road to catch a bus' read as 'I was ranning ap the road to catch a bas.'
Only I know it would be condescending, irritating and wrong. So I wouldn't do it.
wotchuonabaht?
we torque faakin propuh dahn ere not lyke vem bleedin norvners
'Fessing up
I'm actually from the Midlands, although I live in Yorkshire, so the axe I grind is borrowed - slightly.
And anyone who can accurately phoneticise a Leicester accent deserves all kinds of medals. Or 'medwls', which is as near as I can get it.
Roun' Brissle, in thiz areal,
we do run up the rowed to catch uh buzz. Salways a good ideal to run if yer aftrabuzz. They do cum faast wen yooze not paintenshun.
Leicester - Key words ending in Y
Dinghy becomes Dingh - eh
Money become Mun - Eh
also
Go becomes Goo - Example, the question 'Are you going to Blaby?'
becomes 'Are ya goo-ing Blah-Beh?'
Belvoir is pronounced Beever (obviously!)
Men will call you 'Mi Duck' (pronounced dook) - takes a bit of getting used to!
The most consistently mispronounced word has to be...
... "flaccid". I half-expect it from the usual purveyors of rubbish knob-gags on TV, but even Stephen Fry mispronounced it on QI not so long ago. (It's not flassid, as it would be if it was spelt with one 'c', but flaksid, similar to the double-c pronunciation of "succeed" and "access".)
And while I'm here being insufferably precious: "The proof is in the pudding"? Shut up.
The Shorter...
The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary gives both pronunciations, with 'flaksid' first
I am 102 years old
Indeed, and I think the flaksid pronunciation is on the way out now, but you can see how the double-c makes it correct. Fortunately, it's a word I only ever use with my wife and my doctor.
(Incidentally, my Concise Oxford Dictionary lists expresso as a legitimate variant of espresso. Oy to the vey.)
Flaccid
Maybe this says more about me than I'd care to admit, but I can never think about this word without an accompanying 'penis' popping up (so to speak) in my mind.
Integer
pronounced integger - does my head in.
Ne c'est pas?
Mispoke as 'innit?' Young people eh...
Innit
I don't really have a problem with it.
Clearly because the French equivalent is ne c'cest pas (as already indicated). Even the Japanese do something similar at the end of sentences using 'ne'.
So 'innit' is just a linguistic tic. There's probably either some lingustics research somewhere already done, or crying out to be done to examine these kind of moods that seem to solicit confirmation from others.
Apologies for dullness.
Jonathan Ross always talks about the NOOS
instead of the news. StOOdent instead of stEWdent and so on. Why?
Eye - bitha instead of Ibiza
said by Steve Wright and countless others. It is EEEbeetha.
Saying 'What'
instead of 'Pardon', used to be thought ill-mannered. The Russian equivalent Что (Pronounced 'Shtoh') used to be equally impolite in that country.